Interview: Charlie Godet Thomas
Our relationships with the cities we inhabit are often like great love affairs. At moments all-embracing and consuming but stay in one too long and it’s easy to lose sight of what you first fell for.
Sculptor Charlie Godet Thomas’ work highlights the emotions we tie to cities and uses the theme of memory and familiarity to take experiences that are personal to him and turn them into something that can be appreciated by a wider audience.
Having lived in London all his life, Godet Thomas studied his BA in sculpture in Manchester, “it was an important move, it’s easy to become dull to the nuances of the city that surrounds you.” Under the direction of his tutor Dean Hughes (who’s entire back catalogue was recently bought by a collector), Godet Thomas moved away from his early style which had been very moral and politicaconceptual
l, often leading him to make generalisations. “I wanted to find a way to be sure I was always being honest. I felt the best way was to make work centred on the first person, about personal experiences, even though it’s actually quite unfashionable at the moment.”
Despite the current dictat of modern art focussing on the conceptual rather than the descriptive or figurative, Godet Thomas’ work is far from unfashionable. His photographs are presented in beautiful muted hues and he has a fantastic eye for image making. His work takes the viewer to familiar, uncelebrated places and provides a great insight into modern urban landscapes. A few minutes looking at his pieces or his blog and you wish you could see he city through his eyes always.
Inspired by Guy Debord and the Lettrists, a Parisian group of artists and intellectuals working in the 1850s, Godet Thomas practices Derive – walking without intent. This free-associative manner or drift transforms urban landscapes and creates a unique form of psychogeography while summoning experiences.
With a manual camera and sound recorder in tow, Godet Thomas walks at least once a week yet has been working with 12 photographs taken in his final weeks in Manchester for a year now. “I try to figure out why I took the photo and look for pinpoints, I realised that each one represented small things that had happened to me in the city. I suppose it’s odd to still be making work about Manchester but it’s appropriate considering most of my work is about harking back, I’m probably overly nostalgic!”
Work based in these 12 images made up his recent show, Notes on Reality at the newly opened South London gallery, Le Garage. “The gallery had only previously held a work in progress show, the walls weren’t painted and it was pretty scary, a bit of a panic to show. I didn’t have time to make new pieces, only to select previous work, which was hard as I’d fallen out of love with some of them.”
At the heart of the exhibition stood There is a time and a place, an audio installation in which performance artist and close friend, Lauren Bolger reads a poem against the backdrop of all 12 Manchester photos, this juxtaposition of stills and voice is challenging as a viewer, our brain wants us to see a moving image. “I find this approach leaves a space for the audience to work, it helps them to relate to the piece because they make their own connection between the sequence of images and sound. I also take the images out of my photos, giving the viewer more work and space to make it their own.”
Godet Thomas met Bolger on the performance art circuit in Manchester and the two regularly collaborate. “Lauren has a beautiful melancholic voice, it’s sort of honey sweet and really works with the piece. People often question why I don’t use my own voice in the recordings, I think it goes back to my beginnings as a landscape painter (His mother paints landscapes and he began in this vein). The selection and recording of people’s voices and sound is a lot like the way, as a painter you select the tones and hues of paints to create a sense of feeling to your work”.
Influenced by artists like Sophie Calle and Janet Cardiff, Godet Thomas uses sound provided by headphones in many of his pieces “it draws the person in, it’s a lot like the way you hear yourself and your thoughts.”
For the show, Godet Thomas constructed private viewing structure, which isolated viewers in an enclave. In retrospect he feels this made too much of a statement and distracted away from the work. “Looking back a lot failed, but that’s the nature of showing, you work things out. Failure is not something to fear. In a way all my work is designed to fail, I’m constantly trying to recollect a moment that has passed. Going out and trying to capture inexperience with just a camera and voice recorder seems futile, but there’s beauty in what comes out of trying.”
Just as his experiences can’t be captured in their fullness, not can Godet Thomas’ work. A lot of his pieces rely on reflection, light and audience participation, they can’t be photographed and are intangible but this is what makes up their beauty.
Though originating from personal experiences, Godet Thomas’ work successfully resonates with the wider public as it has its foundations in the collective experiences of memory and recollection that everyone can associate with. This and the subtly toned, well crafted finished products make his work collectable. “Some of the portraits sold, I suppose their quite nice to sit on your mantle piece. A lady wanted to buy the floor piece but she worried her cats would probably destroy it. Making the portraits feels a bit safe, it puts me off, they’re diagrammatic, and they are what they are, whereas I can talk about the other pieces all day.
Despite the sales, Godet Thomas is adamant that he isn’t interested in making money and destroys his work after it’s shown. “I make what I want, not what will sell; I find it flattering that people like the work, I’d be happy to give it to them. I do menial jobs just to carry on working and I’ll do that forever, I’m quite stubborn. It’s a strange practice, I hate saying ‘I’m an artist’ but sometimes it’s the only label, I’m not really a sculptor but I work in 3D, I’m only an immature photographer and I don’t really paint. I don’t really know what I do, it’s difficult to define.”
Sculptor, photographer, painter or modern day chronicler of urban life, whatever you see Godet Thomas as it’s hard not to be absorbed by his work. Whether it means you start looking at your surroundings, even the most banal things in a different way or start meandering while walking somewhere a huge amount of beauty can be gained from taking note of his reality.
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Charlie Godet Thomas is currently working towards showing at the Bermuda Biennalewhich begins on 18 June 2010.
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For more information or to gain a glimpse of life through Godet Thomas’ eyes goes to charliegodetthomas.com.
Interview by Kate Rintoul
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