50kg

50kg

Don Driver’s assemblages transform unlikely materials into artworks that mix the banal with the extraordinary. His feeling for material, texture and colour gives his works a distinctive voice, and often draws sensuous beauty from prosaic objects. 50kg is a large wall hanging or banner made by stitching together canvas, polyurethane sacks and fabrics of differing weave, texture and colour. The work reveals Driver’s strength as a colourist, as these commonplace materials are combined to form a composition highly attuned to colour harmony and contrast. Flashes of red, white, black and magenta break up the fresh, sea-green of the background and the dominant khaki of the fabric strips. Used sacks and bits of discarded fabric, woven together, take on new life as an object of aesthetic contemplation.

Driver’s use of an eagle-head motif and the centrality and symmetry of his design recall the graphic structures of coats of arms. As a symbol, the eagle is ubiquitous in flags and ceremonial insignia throughout history. It has been adopted as an identifying mark by the Roman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte, the Nazi Party and the United States, to name only a few, in order to confer a sense of authority and prestige. Here, combined with the military connotations of the khaki fabric, Driver’s eagles communicate the idea of institutional force, but this show of strength is tempered by the ramshackle, recycled nature of his materials.

Driver’s cheerful elevation of mundane items to the status of high art can be seen as a gibe at the reverence usually accorded to items shown in an art gallery. 50kg could be read as a tongue-in-cheek protest banner — demanding equal rights for everyday fabrics — or a stitched together, home-made flag to be strung aloft, transforming the pristine white space of the art gallery into a makeshift pirate ship.