Martin Creed, Work No 885, 2008, Acrylic on canvas
Dean Hughes describes Martin Creed's Work No.885, 2008 as
"a canvas composed of 20 brush marks made with 20 brushes
of diminishing, or increasing size, depending on one's willingness
to acclimatise to issues of scale."
"This sensibility of repetition within Creed's artwork is always
paired with a commitment to the ordinary. As a type of sensory
experience the ordinary is simple yet seemingly rich and complex.
Hum drum, quotidian, everyday, boring, malaise, normal, usual,
regular, common, mundane, all quite effectively locate the ordinary
as something closed and understandable whilst extending its
resonance by inflection."
The repetition that Creed sets up within a single work may be
established by other artists across a whole body of work, or as
an everyday practice, lasting a lifetime. Contrary to what one might
expect, this opens up a space of freedom, since the ordinary is no
longer something merely given and accepted but an area of operation
chosen and maintained.