El Chettleburgh is a 22 year old artist living in Leeds. Their practice is multidisciplinary, engaging with printmaking, analogue photography and sculpture. El’s practice is an exploration of their own queerness and working-class identity. Last year, El exhibited work at Old Red Bus Station, Hyde Park Book Club, and Dreamland as an artist in residence with Margate Pride. They will graduate this summer after studying BA Fine Art with Contemporary Cultural Theory at the University of Leeds.
Prototype is a light sculpture which performs in loop over three minutes, inspired by the work of Jenny Holzer. Three controllers are programmed to scroll text across an LED matrix. Prototype’s text is formed of excerpts from the artist’s journal, separated into groups based on the outlook and emotion at time of writing. Each controller’s programming holds its own characterisation; each representative of a core part of the artist’s experience and identity. These are: Queerness, Erratic Behaviour and Depressive Episodes. At times, excerpts are shared across the controllers as the artist cannot categorise the writing within just one theme or another.
Prototype challenges traditional ideas of sculpture, using electronics over form to manipulate the space it is within. Merging and shifting puddles of colour create simultaneous harmony and pollution as the light leaks onto the walls, and the viewer is enticed by three stems interact with one another within colour and space, contextuality through subject matter.
