R.P. Anderson

Studio 41, Glasgow, 2012

"To go back to the theme of death, it seems like you take two different approaches. One is to take onboard the very act of creating a work and exhibiting it after it is made. It then becomes an exhibition of a dead object or a dead image. In addition, the decision to draw from a skull, the epitome of mortality and then exhibit it puts you in a position of confronting the very situation that you want to avoid. I wonder if this is in any way off-putting for you. The other approach, of making a performance together with or with the consciousness of audience, almost seems to be a way of resisting any possibility of viewing a work that is dead. I also wonder how the performance will alter the way that the paintings are viewed and what kind of meanings will be created.

I have some thoughts on the title, R. P. Anderson, being your late father’s name, as well as Received Pronunciation. We didn’t speak much about it, but when I think of it, it seems that choosing to use his initials is a choice of wanting to be publicly acknowledged as your father’s son, as part of a lineage and of tradition. It also makes me think of how titling the event becomes a memorial of sorts. That in making work (and therefore creating your legacy), his name continues in the process. It feels like an acknowledgement of how our thoughts and actions are indebted to the past."

Excerpt of email from Mag Chua to Steven Anderson March 2012