And yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about that about the book, but that passage particularly because we have choices on a macro and micro level to decide: What kind of world do I want to live in? What kind of life do I want to make today in order to create some type of system for it to be sustained, potentially, hopefully, for another day? I’ve been thinking about that with the ideas of growth and change over time.
Rail: You mentioned that color was about time for you, and I wanted to return to that. Do you mean the time it takes you to determine what color, or that time is color, like a synesthetic sort of thing? What did you mean by that?
Peacock: When I say that, I think that I mean that color is change, and change is time. Change requires time, and time should, in my opinion, inevitably embrace change. With color, and specifically with these works and the exhibition, it’s about balancing. It’s balancing this very enduring act that takes a lot of time. At this scale, it’s balancing that with the time that it takes to experiment with color, because a lot of the time that I would spend doing that is not braiding. It’s in mixing. It’s super messy: at this scale, mixing is tough because the more synthetic the hair is, which usually means it’s brighter, the more it sheds. With a really tiny braid, you’ve mixed its colors, and then you start losing fibers, and you’re like, “Okay, now it’s just green. Yeah, it was supposed to be green and red and, like, brown and white, and it’s like okay, it’s just one color.” That’s the technical thing. But the other thing about when I say color is time is that color is about a presence. It’s about an effect, like that blue I mentioned that was probably from some effect. It’s indicative of presence or of something that’s touched it. Working as a person who has no ability, as none of us does, to make a tree, I think I try with color to channel something unnamable, something within me that can act as a presence upon the work.
Rail: Since this is synthetic, is it colorfast or will the color fade or change over time?
Peacock: No, which for archival purposes is great; nothing changes over time. But the idea of changing visually or of light changing over time, is something that I’m interested in evoking, which is harder in smaller works. Obviously, there’s less space for change. But one of my ultimate pursuits is for the work to feel like it is going through different phases even as you encounter it all at once. It’s an exciting thing to ponder. I can see where I would do it or could if it were five times larger. And yet, there’s no time.
Rail: Are all of the works going to be on the walls, or are you going to have some freestanding things, too?
Peacock: There are works sort of everywhere. There are works hanging from the ceiling. There are works that are moving. There are works that are on the wall, and then there’s a work that will only really register to touch. It’s visible, but it’s hardly visible. It’s the largest work in the show, which is exciting, and it’s the last work that will be made. That will be made on site, and it’s the one that ties everything together.
Rail: How do you, as an artist who can’t be there all the time, let your audience know that they can touch it? Because this is something that is typically a big no-no, right?
Peacock: I think there are a few different ways, and one, which is my desired and favorite way, is through discovery and word of mouth. Whether from me or from someone else, someone learns that there is this work that is legible, or that will become legible and will reveal itself essentially to you, if you are spending time with the exhibition. I have a history of working in forms that are non-visual as well, in performance, and in movement and the tactile. You get more out of that experience based on how willing you are to be with the experience. You garner or gain the most by being present around it. So that work is kind of the ghost of the exhibition, and I’m hoping that it’s made well enough that it lingers around the viewer, and then hopefully that lingering turns, and that it’s reflected, and the work becomes the one that is put on display, as opposed to being watched by the other work.
Rail: And do you need to touch it with your hands, or can you just brush up against it?
Peacock: It’s really strong, physically enduring, and it’s extensive. There are a few different physical ways in which you can learn that it’s present. But I think once discovered, it’s hard to ignore.
Rail: I’m trying to envision what this is going to look like, and one of the questions I have is, how packed will it be?
Peacock: I’ve been thinking a lot about that, because I have in the past chosen to make just one object for a show. The gallery has always been very supportive of me making whatever I want to make, and I ended up just trying to let go of the anxiety about exhibition building by starting at this smaller scale. These were the first works I made for the show; I was just seeing how these felt, and if I wanted to go a little larger, then I would, but I just tried to keep my eye on the deadline. The show feels like there’s a spacious amount of work, and that each work is extremely dense. There are pieces in the exhibition that are large, and artworks that I think would be considered small, but the throughline is that they’re all extremely worked.
Rail: Earlier you had said that it’s about the macro and the micro, which seems to be the way that you’re envisioning this show. The macro level is the gallery as a whole, even the viewer standing outside the gallery, looking at what’s going on. Then you’re within it, and it’s where we get into that meander idea again: you’re envisioning the person going through and amongst works, and then we get to the individual works, and they also have these ways, these paths, inside them. And then you have the braids which follow threads themselves. We can meander through the show, but a meander is also a pattern that is almost like a labyrinth that winds up being very nearly a knot, but a knot that can be undone. The braids meander and are meanders, too.
Peacock: Chris Ofili once said that an exhibition is not a conclusion; it’s just a display of a moment of your findings from that time. He said that your studio is not a factory; it is a laboratory. Working in extensive, long durational practices on one thing, whether it’s in my athletic life or my artwork, is not new to me. It’s the way that I worked on my art as a child, so I have instilled within me that a lot of the great and best things sometimes take extensive amounts of time. Working on this exhibition has shown me that I don’t have to sacrifice that intentionality in order to make an exhibition. It’s really great to know that not only is that not the case, but that it can be embraced, and that it helps birth more things.
Rail: So, it’s both reflective of your practice and productive for your practice.
Peacock: Yes, very productive. Even in the times when I am working alone, I’m almost always thinking about some type of larger communal pursuit or larger communal project. I think in the exhibition you will see the spirit of an artist who really wants to go deeper. It’s never enough.