{"id":1934,"date":"2023-08-08T11:15:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T11:15:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/?page_id=1934"},"modified":"2026-06-23T12:20:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T12:20:52","slug":"on-rebecca-gould","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/?page_id=1934","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEWS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How To Symbolise This Fuck You<\/em>, Rebecca May Johnson. Text on Rebecca Gould’s practice, first published by Freelands Foundation, for the book, Aggregate<\/em>, in conjunction with the exhibition of same name (10 March \u2013 29 May 2022, Freelands Foundation, 113 Regent’s Park Road, London, NW1 8UR)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peaches I bought are slowly rotting on the sideboard \u2013 a grey fluff blankets them like a LOL furry pet doll. I\u2019m slipping into the role nicely. Like a slim lady\u2019s finger, a hand sliding into a tight leather glove. New kid.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through an oeuvre spanning text, painting, video and readymades, Rebecca Gould exposes the textures and significance of everyday life. Domestic work, childcare, the slight pleasures of shining trinkets, the poetics of mould on forgotten fruit: these things are turned over, played with, and in the playing, reveal depths, histories. Genealogies of labour emerge as mass-produced readymades rub up against pre-industrial craftworks-in-progress. Items from high street shops are stitched onto home-dyed fabrics and remind the viewer that someone made that, too. Gould\u2019s work does not exalt the \u2018one-off\u2019 as a worthier version to factory production, but rather exposes processes of commodification that shape life. I am reminded of reading Marx\u2019s Capital <\/em>\u2013 how he takes a modest, available object like a table or a roll of linen and uses it to show readers how the world has been made (and by whom).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I work with whatever I have to hand, the immediacy of my practice is inherent in how I make my work \u2013 I\u2019m not fabricating metal if I have no access to a welding machine \u2013 I use what I have to carve my practice out of.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Art can be at the scale of a double duvet. Gould\u2019s Broken Ouroboros, Sandwiches Cut With The Crusts Off <\/em>(2021) has an affective power that threatens to put a stop to thought: the puffy duvet painted with squares of bright colour invites me to lie down. Wadded fabrics encourage rest and relaxation; perhaps I will take a \u2018duvet day\u2019 and clock off from the stress of waged work under capitalism. Domestic space is often framed as an escape from the \u2018real\u2019 world outside where commerce and politics and violence take place. The outside-inside division prescribes different forms of labour; inside there are \u2018sandwiches cut with the crusts off\u2019. Soft sandwiches with no hard edges soften the day like the duvet. They sustain the body and the spirit: but the piece seems to ask, sustain it for what purpose? Making sandwiches and sleeping are aspects of social reproduction that underpin capitalism, but Gould encourages the viewer to make more of them, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By binding and using wadding these quilts become large sculptural objects weighted with time and labour, the invisible gestures of care-giving made visible. The fragment needs revisiting, and our everyday rituals: brushing my children\u2019s hair, cleaning their teeth, make up the fabric of my life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wonky handmade table with legs from tree branches staggers onto the duvet as if exhausted, bringing messages from the outside in. The table displays the fragments of a broken ouroboros: the continuum of history has exploded. The circle of eternal return is broken; perhaps the system is not inevitable or inescapable? Fragments will be re- purposed and ordinary devotion <\/em>will be liberated. Death and a not a rebirth as the same. An opening. A ceramic swan sings a knick-knack \u2018swan song\u2019 around the ashes of burnt wood. A golden lipstick case lying on the duvet is inscribed with the words \u2018Paradise is Now\u2019. Is paradise something that should be demanded now? Or has an image of paradise been trapped like a fly in amber as a commodity? The piece is ambiguous, or rather, alive with dialectical investigations \u2013 but in this moment I choose to see the words as prophecy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The squares underfoot painted plum, sky blue and orange conjure up a technicolour duvet future. Paradise will be the inside, gone outside: fuck work and duvet days for days and burnished lipsticks and sandwiches cut just how you like them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Gould\u2019s visions of paradise, the body is not left to languish or catch a chill. Her poetics do not transcend graspable forms of pleasure and comfort, but situate the future within them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to make things solid and functional, to be in control
of things in a visceral way. The structure of the quilt being rectangular is reminiscent of the structure of the sonnet, the parameters allow chaos to be contained. By sewing I\u2019m holding it together, keeping the separate elements firm, it\u2019s satisfying to make these complete sculptural objects. I wanted soft blankets to make sure everyone was warm and would never be cold, by making these quilts completely functional they trade in ideas of work, capital, the value placed on ways of life and the patriarchal art world.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Gould\u2019s work refers to activities she performs in a domestic setting, it is not autobiographical, but rather, autotheoretical. Materials, objects and colours from life become the means through which conceptual gestures are made about labour practices, patriarchy, the meaning of joy and utopia. And materials themselves, as well as having a signifying function within the immediate context of the work, also refer to the history of Gould\u2019s artistic labour, as old work is reused to make new work <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of my previous works are recycled into another work, so they are never finished, always moving into something else. You can see traces of the lives of materials.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colours and textures of the future have come from somewhere, are made by someone \u2013 they have a past. Gould both swerves the shops through reusing materials but also points to their centrality in contemporary life through explicitly citing their names in the titles and descriptions of the artworks: she is not trying to avoid a fight, but rather, is seeking one out,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am obsessed with looking for conflict \u2013 how to symbolise this fuck you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca Gould is an artist working with sculpture, video and readymades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebecca May Johnson is a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 All italic paragraphs by Rebecca Gould
from a conversation via email with Rebecca May Johnson, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Interview between Rebecca Gould & Samuel Hasler (via emails Sept 2021-Jan 2022)\u00a0 Booklet published by g39, on occasion of The Freelands Foundation Fellowship, in conjunction with the exhibition No Time To Plan An Ending<\/em>, g39, Cardiff.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

(Sam Hasler)<\/em> <\/em><\/strong>Describe a piece of work you\u2019ve not made yet, either that you are working on, or that you simply imagine you would like to make.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Rebecca Gould) I don\u2019t prioritise one over the other; video, fabric, words, my work has to be accessible for me to produce, so I use everything I have to hand, the quilts are made from components of previous installations. Me utilising traditional craft domains such as fabric and quilting is a means to an end, an exuberant enjoyment of material and an embracing of a DIY culture, low ground, low environmental impact and making do with what you have. Creating monumental sculptures that are made of degradable and \u2018low value\u2019 material such as fabric gives me joy – like I can make this world better by doing this – even if it’s only for myself. It also gives a way into contemporary art for the public, like if it\u2019s something tangible and recognisable they have an entry point to feel safe to explore and question what it is they are looking at. These quilts become markers of time, the tick of hours, they are weighted with this time and labour. Heavy, huge objects where these invisible gestures of the care of motherhood are made visible, once unfolded and hung within a space they inhabit aggressively in a patriarchal art world. They are functional and historical time capsules handed down, rolled up and able to be transported easily, gestures within contained with emotion. It felt like a way to preserve things and time in a heavily laden object – the stitch holds everything together but it also creates a hole, the sacrifice for the greater good. Another element of this installation is a black and white striped mattress and stool, it reminds me of play centres, these places of high sugar, germs and kids that were closed for so long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) How much does the culture of North Wales influence and affect your work?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) I\u2019m trying to explain what it feels like to be an outsider, what it feels like not to belong to a place that has such a rich and heavily undermined history. To be on the edges, both as an artist and living somewhere that you feel like you don\u2019t belong. A nearby village is reminiscent of the small town in Jaws. In winter it is like a ghost town, foggy and damp, but quiet, 80% holiday home occupancy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) How do you get to work? (In a pragmatic sense how do you go about making work? What are the physical spaces and conditions that you work in? Alone, with people, in a studio, at home, in quiet, with music, in cafes, in the morning, after dark, in short bursts, a little every day, with carefulness, with chaos)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) It depends what I\u2019m doing but usually I like either silence or a some shitty radio station like Magic or Heart fm. Getting to work for me requires a stable routine, both kids in school, no external worries, time, space, funding and support. I\u2019ve always had a deep anger about the opportunities for artists that require you to be able to leave your life completely and move somewhere else for a period, my elder is now 14 so it\u2019s been a long time that I\u2019ve been a parent and not been able to access certain opportunities. Obviously it is beneficial for those that can, but I feel like there should be more done to support artists to stay in their lives with caring or health commitments and also continue their practices. We\u2019re perpetuating a world where only the able and free bodied can participate or have a valid voice because what is required of them within this capitalist branding machine of the art world. The guilt you feel for not being physically or maybe mentally present is compounded within this context, as it feels like you weren\u2019t meant to be both parent and artist. The quilts also mimic this feeling of suffocating and enveloping, like the weight of society’s expectations that Jacqueline Rose talks about in \u2018Mothers\u2019. So in our family we work as a team to care for each other – to create a positive not sacrificial domesticity. I think there is so much emphasis on changing the world, but what about the world you\u2019re creating right now? How do you care for those close to you? How are you living your best life? Art has now created other layers of exclusivity, it all needs to go – all power structures. That our way of living in this world could be completely different, also the idea to cultivate joy like it’s something that needs nurturing and care. The small moments of joy from simple things like the sound of your cordless hoover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) Is there anything that people rarely ask or talk about but that you think is a really important element of your work? I mean, are there parts of your practice that you feel people either overstate or overlook? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) Maybe, I feel that people can\u2019t recognise when something is fabricated in a way you want it to exist in the world, like a lot of people would prefer it if you outsourced so the work loses the hand. But my work is an extension of myself and looks exactly how I want it to exist. It’s a removal of the person from the object and that in itself is considered in a contemporary mode as more avant garde – but what it actually is is a representation of the society that we live in – late capitalism, to be completely separated from the production of that object. The artist doling out labour to other people to create their artwork just copies the model of the factory\/landowner in the capitalist system. However the idea that the artist is a kind of god like figure alone isn\u2019t right either – work is made through a communal aspect, be that conversations that influence the work or ideas. Gramsci said intellectuals are the chicken shit for the masses – they should be fertilising the ground. I think the neoliberal push towards a business-like-branded professionalism has stripped art of artists. Also boring is the idea of ironic distance having any place within art now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) <\/strong><\/em>When I look at your work I think about the ideas of beauty, the sublime and the idyllic, but approached in a way that seems to be hinting at a dark humour or some corruption of these things, I can\u2019t put my finger exactly where\/how\/why I\u2019m finding these things. Do you consciously try to apply narratives to your work, or is there a more cumulative instinctual composition that generates its own themes or opportunities for narrative readings? <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) I feel like there is something rotting away at the core, like we\u2019re all slowly leaving the earth and we\u2019re all scrambling around trying to make our mark on it – to leave something behind that outlives our bodies. I\u2019m really enjoying getting into poetry, particularly Bernadette Mayer, Denise Riley, Selima Hill and Ocean Yeoung. In \u2018on earth we\u2019re briefly gorgeous\u2019 he writes \u201cI never wanted to build a \u201cbody of work\u201d, but to preserve these, our bodies, breathing and unaccounted for, inside the work. Take it or leave it. The body, I mean.\u201d I am concerned with the direct fleshy substance of materials and the process of transformation that takes place between these materials and me. Like when Berger talks about Spinoza around his ideas that oppose dualism, that material and spiritual worlds cannot be separated – they are combined. I write alongside when I\u2019m physically making so I get the titles of my work from the things that are concerning me at the time. Everything in my work slips into memory, a piece of clothing I wore 20 years ago at a rave becomes part of an installation, so embedded within the materials I use are stories, but perhaps your story is there too? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) There is a strong and powerful sense of anger, injustice in your answers. When I see your work I imagine that you had fun making it. These two things are not mutually exclusive of course. Do you think you have fun when you make work? <\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) I think cultivating joy and hope are among the hardest things to keep doing but we have to choose it. My work is my sanctuary and my respite against everything that is going on in my life. But it is also so difficult like I\u2019m creating this labour, this work for myself as I think it is the only way that I can exist in the world. I don\u2019t know anything else – it’s a constant battle of thoughts. Perhaps it’s better to situate it within some kind of faith or following a spiritual path as the capitalist art world is too disgusting to exist comfortably within. I like to put time into my work – whether that is brushing the floor in the studio or listening to the same 30 second join on a video. The everyday sits within all my work as I think that is where we find the key to survival and humanity – becoming so specific and focused on something that is relevant to you that it will naturally touch other people’s lives as it intersects with things they are thinking too. Perhaps if there was an art world that I could see a place in – it would be better, but I don\u2019t know, people within the art world talk about care or being inclusive yet from my experience its the most bitchy, ablest world that is out there. The capitalist machine grinds on and there is no place for anything that doesn\u2019t participate in person. So in my life I have made commitments to the way I bring up my family (when I say family I\u2019m interested in how we can rethink our ideas around the family as a nuclear structure) but for me my unit is my sanctuary against capitalism and the care between us all are the things I regard as deeply important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) <\/strong><\/em>A recurring theme of resistance to capitalism. I was interested particularly in the way that your artworks blending with family life is a strategy of resistance\/criticism of capitalist structures and values. And also the idea that craft, the artists hand remaining in the work seeming to be important in a particular and political way.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) Capitalism brings us all to our knees, because it is in the basic struggle to survive that all our freedoms and choices are taken away from us. So I guess the only resistance I can do is to care for the people I love and have the best life I can within the structures of this system we are living under. I don\u2019t believe in the power of the individual to overcome, as the whole social and political structure that surrounds the individual dictates their success or even their very basic survival. How can you possibly have a level playing field when it costs so much to be poor and these costs are translated into health and life expectancy? Artists aren\u2019t business schemes or social workers, we need autonomy and an end to bureaucratic structures such as acw that act as gate-keepers. A universal basic income for all, will mean everyone has the freedom to do what they want. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(SH) I’m always surprised how much people assume is true and assume is autobiographical about almost all artworks. Is it important to you that it’s true? Do you bring in fictions and blended fictions and memories?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) I think that although I question whether it is important to believe it is true for it to mean something as a viewer; I think that our lived experiences are the roots of our work – so there is no question of whether something is \u201creal\u201d or not – I mean are our memories? Everything is a blend of circumstance, trauma or ways of surviving. We all bring ourselves to a work of art – either as a viewer or as an artist. Sister Wendy Beckett We should listen to the appreciations of others, but then we should put them aside and advance toward a work of art in the loneliness of our own truth.<\/em> I absolutely love this. This is where my interests collide in the idea of religion \/ a \u2018holy life\u2019 as a way to exist as an artist, rather than the idea of the \u2018contemporary\u2019 artist which is only a product of competition and a plaything for the rich. Be a compassionate human rather than a capitalist neoliberal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 (SH) Tell me about the small joy you find in the sound of the cordless hoover?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(RG) The sound of the lithium battery hoover reminds me of the Starship Enterprise that there is a potential for us all to have this luxury communism, that we don\u2019t need to be wallowing in mud. It’s also a decent model of how to make chores easier for people. So it\u2019s almost a glimpse of a future, where all different people have an equal place in society, all have an equal purpose on this ship. Maybe I\u2019m imagining living on this ship and what that means for my sense of worth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How To Symbolise This Fuck You, Rebecca May Johnson. Text on Rebecca Gould’s practice, first published by Freelands Foundation, for the book, Aggregate, in conjunction with the exhibition of same name (10 March \u2013 29 May 2022, Freelands Foundation, 113 Regent’s Park Road, London, NW1 8UR) The peaches I bought are slowly rotting on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":780198,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1934","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/780198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1934"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1934\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rebeccagould.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}