Rachael Haines

Tudor

2 March 2018 - ongoing

Rachael Haines installed the latest incarnation of her ongoing series  TUDOR at TJ Boulting in March 2018. Created solely with gaffer tape to create the ‘tudor’ theme organically and directly on the walls, this new presentation occupied the toilet and kitchen area of the gallery. 

“Tudor isn’t a site specific work as such its much more of a response to the location it is invading. It’s about creating an aesthetic that can be deployed spatially. What I love about using everyday materials such as gaffer tape is that I can alter the banal into the unusual in a very easy and accessible way but without losing that wow factor, that element of surprise. Just as the role of the materials take on a new meaning so does the space and atmosphere in which they are used.” 

In this context the work is also responding to the history of the building, as TJ Boulting was originally an engineers and one of the areas of expertise was in sanitation. TJ Boulting is said to have fitted the first flushing loo at Windsor Castle ahead of the more renowned Thomas Crapper. Rachael has previously installed ‘Tudor’ in Trolley Gallery (2010), Faggionato Fine Art (2010), Transition Gallery (2011), and Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes (2009)

“There was something about the blackness of gaffer tape and the straight lines that appealed to me when I was thinking how I could respond to an image of a Tudor house I had found years before in a book. I tried printing patterns on paper but it was just too static. I wanted to play with a material that lent itself to shabbiness, like an old house. There was something so picturesque and precious about this image that I felt I needed to pull it out and it give back its original tactile qualities. The texture of the gaffer tape reminded me more and more of the surface of wood. Air bubbles would affect the surface of the tape and it would sometimes peel at the edges and fray. Tudor seemed to take on a life of its own, breathing and shifting with time.”