Radical rhetoric

  • Arts
Kevin Rodgers’ artistic practice draws upon provisional formalism and conservative subcultures.
Image by: Christine Blais
Kevin Rodgers’ artistic practice draws upon provisional formalism and conservative subcultures.

1. Who are you?

Kevin Rodgers. An artist and writer who currently lives in London, ON.

2. What do you do?

Aside from writing and making art, I teach sculpture at the University of Western Ontario where I am pursuing my PhD in Art and Visual Culture.

3. Where can people find you?

If not in the woodshop or my studio, at kevinrodgers.ca.

4. What inspires you?

Care, craft and commitment.

5. What do you feel your role is as an artist?

Certainly not a facilitator, pamphleteer, or educator, even though I engage in all three.

6. How would you describe your art to someone who’s never seen it?

Provisional. Often it looks like stacks of boxes, wood or furniture that are waiting to be shipped elsewhere or unpacked. This upcoming exhibition at Modern Fuel gets away from that a bit as I’m dealing with more self contained works (as opposed to a sprawling installation).

7. What’s the nicest and worst thing someone has said to you about your work?

The worst thing is when someone says I’m intentionally trying to pull the wool over the viewer’s eyes, which I’ve had said to me more than once. I have more respect for the viewer than that. I had an older woman come into my studio once to look at my recent work and she took a small sculpture home with her because she wanted to live with it. When someone wants to have a work as part of their lives and wake up to it every day then that is a compliment. So that woman indirectly said the nicest thing to me.

8. What are your current obsessions?

Lindsay Lohan, William Faulkner and Hannah Arendt.

9. When someone says Kingston, you say:

Halifax. It reminds me of that city a lot as I used to live there for five years. Especially with all this rain—all I need is a little fog.

10. What are you working on now?

I’m working on my dissertation, an outdoor project for the Lola festival in London in the fall and an upcoming exhibition in Gent, Belgium at the end of this year.

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