RCA Secret
Postcards are like seeds.
Great beginnings on the smallest scale, each anonymous grain is quietly distinct. Their idiosyncrasies are the reward for the close inspector. In any one handful they will be whiskered, rough, or downy, smooth and shiny, striped, spotted or blotched, white, red, yellow, brown, black, grey, green. Some look like close relations with a common ancestry, others as though from worlds apart. These dormant containers are keepers of methods and processes; they’ve got ideas and truths to tell. One is the distillation of years of evolution and refinement; one is a bold new hybrid; and another is a one-off, a renegade.
Whether the sketched seed of an idea, or a complete masterpiece, the works here are replete with potential. Discoveries will be made by chance or purpose, amid the insect hum and the gallery buzz. Falling onto good ground, each work will slowly reveal itself, taking up its position, perhaps displayed with pride on a prominent wall, or delicately secreted away among the pages of a much loved book. The postcard – that perfect tool of pictorial communication – finds new life as broadcaster, as scatterer of a new season’s secrets.
Susannah Worth
Critical Writing in Art & Design, RCA