Laser etching and Somerset velvet paper on mirror card, 420x594mm. Edition of two.

Printed at Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio, June 2024.

Thanks; Claire McVinnie and DCA Print Studio, made possible by support from Hospitalfield.

Commissioned for Edinburgh Art Festival 2024

Part of PLATFORM2024 at Edinburgh Art Festival
City Art Centre, 9–25 August 2024

Smear (I am mud and flame) is made by searing black velvet paper into the surface of mirrored card with a laser engraver. In the mirrored print, the viewer’s reflection replaces the position of the performer in the three channel video installation ‘Pillory, Pillocks!’ that the print accompanies, implicating them as victim rather than assailant. The title is appropriated from some of the final dialogue spoken by protagonist Stephen in Penda’s Fen (1974) as he comes to accept his queer complexities. Intentionally muddying the nationalist mantra of ‘blood and soil’, Stephen exclaims: “I am nothing pure! My race is mixed. My sex is mixed. I am woman and man, light and darkness, nothing pure! I am mud and flame!”