Patrick Ford

Originally trained as a sculptor, Patrick Ford has also worked as a printmaker and is currently pursuing projects involving the development of an approach to drawing methodology and performance, especially that related to Walking Art.

This walking project explored a local district of Ho Chi Minh City in Saigon, recording ambient colours using a mobile phone app (City Palette) at each road intersection within the project boundaries. The ambient colours were determined by whichever colours dominated the visual scope of the area being studied. The choice of colours was therefore relinquished by the artist and the ambient colour recorded by the mobile phone app was depicted as faithfully as possible within the digital print that was created using Adobe Illustrator.  

The overall format of the print represented an abstracted map of the local area, and the recorded ambient colours were placed as close as possible according to the location at which they were recorded.   

Once the digital print had been completed, nine details of areas within the image were selected and then enlarged. The black and white squares in the image represent the building blocks within the map, and in the enlarged details these were constructed using MDF blocks of four different thicknesses to represent the varying heights of the local buildings. The MDF blocks were attached to plywood and then the 30 x 30cm tiles were painted using acrylic. Each of the selected areas covers nine squares and contains at least one rendition of the recorded ambient colours.  

 

“My practice often seeks to take artmaking out into the environment to encourage observation, reflection, and response, and just as often focuses on the border between disciplines.”