The Milk of Human Kindness

Florescent light, paper
1.2m x 0.8m

Selected photos

Lance's talk from the Opening Night. Artists Talk About Their Work.
Wednesday 19 March 2008, 7:00-8:30pm, in the Gallery Space.

Facilitated by Sandra Atkins.

Lance Pearce: I had a couple of main ideas for . . . and I decided . . . My first idea was thinking about how human language is inadequate to express, or express the idea of heavenly or spiritual ideas in general. And then I kind of moved on and just thought about Christ’s saying to the criminal “today you will be with me in paradise” and it just struck me as just a very kind offer, in the midst of his suffering he extended grace to someone. And it just kind of led me to think about human kindness and I just toyed with the idea that I’m a huge fan of human kindness. The idea of one human being, being kind to another human being and perhaps that’s a metaphor or something, of paradise, or of God. Just about the lines and things, I guess its kind of symbolic to me of just journey lines and journeying side by side with people and intercepting.

Sandra: I know in your speaking that you’ve had a number of ideas, to express what you wanted to, and you’ve changed your idea right at the end. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that process developed and what particularly made you choose this idea.

Lance: Initially I was going to have a Bible on a school desk and I’d paint out the words, the text and sellotape them to the ground and it was connected to the sea of human language and then I got the feeling of a light box sometime . . . like representing human warmth. I guess on practical terms this was easy to construct, I guess that’s part of the message, part of what I was doing.

Sandra: So how has your concept of paradise changed as you work through those concepts?

Lance: I did the same verse last year and I don’t think I understand it anymore than I did then. I guess I like thinking about what it means on a day-to-day, everyday basis, spiritual missions, I like the idea of trying to grasp what happens next . . .

[From the floor]: I wonder if there’s any symbolism in that those lines are shorter?

Lance: I didn’t really think about that until this evening . . . It’s kind of like, when I was setting it up, I just thought of it as being like drawing on the floor. I started with . . . black paper strips coming out of light, and then this is like a drawing of, composition, filling a space. That was what I was thinking about more than the symbolism.