ARTIST STATEMENT

Hoods work is a character driven narrative that fluctuates between trying to create works of art, and renouncing ‘the art world’. The original version of this work was becoming a Ritual Magician, The current incarnation of this work is running a (non) independant (non) country - which on face value is meant to demonstrate a repetition of a process, which has expanded into more demonstrable ideologies- in reality though it is a rewriting, and a restaging of the source material relevant to the training of a magician, which includes texts around Religion, Pschology, Pschoanalysis, History and Counter-Culture, changing their original content into fictional explanations of the concepts Democracy and Freedom. Key ideas in this work revolve around notions of the artists’ touch, the ritualistic and religious aspects of play, and the position of the artist in postmodern society - this is manifest in fluctuations between the virtual and the real, and nihilism towards a Western ‘Grand Narrative’.  There is a psychosis in the figure of the artist which is caused by a modern position, Hood is trying to contemplate this position within a wider western narrative which relies heavily on ideologies of Democracy and Freedom, ideologies which are becoming increasingly translucent and empty. The main work of the characterisation is to make the work accessible through an apparent ignorance to wider social and political context. It is  only through this characterisation that the work can be taken as an utterance,or as self contained thing-in-itself action, rather than a description of our position in the modern world. Within this I am also hoping to understand the descriptive limits of art, and to transform individual works into a complex tapestry of an immersive reality, where there is no identification of what ‘is to be considered’ as an attempt to make art, and what is not - by doing this Hood is hoping to build both knowledge and a rhetoric on what constitutes a work of art.

BIOGRAPHY

On the 27th of March this year, This artist: Simon Hood became That magician: Simon Hood. The transition between the two different functions has been slow, and is ongoing. That Magician; Simon Hood acknowledges that he is still a student of magic, and still needs time to further explore the practice of ritual magic.  

This former artist; Simon Hood no longer creates works of art, he believes this fundamentally in himself. The practice of ritual magic however, is an exploration of unknowable and unquantifiable experiences inherent within objects. That magician; Simon Hood is on an exploration of his own spiritual self, to develop a deeper understanding of the duality present in all things, and the unfathomable qualities which govern the cosmos. By exploring these themes, that Magician; Simon Hood is examining his own systematic structures of beliefs, and attempting to deconstruct them, eventually causing an absolute unity of his animal and spiritual self.

Before becoming a magician, This Former Artist; Simon Hood was concerned about ideas such as function, the role of an artist, representation and the institution. However This Former Artist; Simon Hood no longer has that capacity.