David Bellingham prefers to keep a low profile and even introduces himself that way. The following is written in his own words. We chose to keep it just as he sent it.

“David Bellingham is an artist of near total obscurity, who scratches a living making and mending.  His work is occasionally to be found in the regions but it does not stay long and is hard to spot.  He does his best to keep a low profile.You will not have heard of him before and you may never hear of him again. The work takes its chances in the open air traveling by word of mouth, as recollection and anecdote. Bellingham was born in South London and lives and works in Glasgow.”

Hi David, thanks for being part of this! How are things in your world lately?

Things are ticking over. Currently I am in France working on a few new projects. When there is something new to work on I am content, I like to keep myself busy. The work emerges from the daily activity of making things; although much of it might appear conceptual, it really comes out of a childlike curiosity to turn things into other things. Much of the work concerns the slippage between language and objects: words into things - things into words: everyday metamorphosis. In this sense the works are unsettled objects aimed at prompting conversation.

Your work feels both deliberate and open-ended. How do you usually begin a new piece? Does it start with a word, an object, a shape?

Reading is an important part of my working process… much of the work is prompted by that. Even when there is little time to read I like to have books around. Of course reading isn’t limited to texts - reading things and pictures is equally important. One way or another the works I make are a public extension of the process of reading. However my approach to reading is unsystematic - I tend to have many books on the go at any one time, some I finish, some I dip into.

The process of making work is, in substantial part, one of coming to terms with what has come before and refreshing it, like washing the sheets and remaking the bed, or giving the walls a fresh coat of paint.

“the whole within the part”

There’s such a satisfying play between object and meaning across your work - titles like A Jar Ajar, Something To Hang On A Wall, Box Full of Air, Something In The Place Of Something Else. What draws you to this kind of playful literalism?

I make artificial things to jostle against the real things that are already out there in the world. Many of the works propose a small change or alteration to something familiar; refreshments that allow everyday things to be seen anew. 

Much of the work draws on the uneasy relationship between things and words; my interest is in the potential for an imaginative space between these aspects. My subject is this space of imagination - but don’t tell anyone, it is a secret.

“a jar ajar”

There’s also a strong sense of material awareness in your works. Do you think materials are just carriers for meaning or do they sometimes spark the meaning themselves?

The task of composition involves a balancing of materials against each other: words, things, shapes and colours arranged in such a way that they agitate the situation. In a successful artwork the materials should be bouncing around generating fresh associations. 

Meaning is an added ingredient. An artwork is a prompt intended to induce curiosity in the reader - meaning is constructed in this exchange. 

If there is no reader there is no meaning. 

(Left) there is something in the window (Right) columns of this and that

Works like CECI N’EST PAS UNE PIPE and Citron–Citroën feel like visual jokes that also carry something more layered. What’s the role of humour in your work? Does it serve a function beyond the punchline?

I like to laugh and I like to think, so I try to make things that make me laugh and make me think at the same time. It is easy to dismiss humour as something throwaway, whereas laughter is often a more profound and engaged response to a situation than melancholy. You cannot fake humour.

“ceci n’est pas une pipe”

Looking across your works, do you ever feel like you're slowly building a vocabulary - a private system of signs? Or is each piece its own separate utterance?

The project is one thing, the individual works are component parts in the whole. As in a machine in which individual parts have various functions and purposes but operate together to serve a common purpose.

In exhibitions and publications the aim is for the various aspects of the work to have a dialectical relationship. Rather than a single grand project I make simple, straightforward, works that when exhibited in various combinations offer the possibility of greater complexity. 

The ideal form of art is conversation - what I try to do is make prompts for conversation. The works are tools for thinking with.

“ it is tomorrow…”

Has your relationship with the idea of ‘art’ changed over time? Do you see it differently now than when you started making it?

From a young age I made things fairly compulsively, at a certain point I realised that you could call this activity ‘art’. In some ways I am doing the same thing now as I did as a child which is to make things in order to make sense of the world.

What kinds of things tend to catch your eye when you’re out in the world? Are you a walker, a people-watcher, a collector of small moments…?

Familiar things in unexpected settings. Unexpected things in familiar settings.

Citron / Citroen (after Marcel Broodthaers)

We’d love a little glimpse of your working space - desk, wall, floor… wherever things happen.

(Left) Working room (Right) Reading room

And lastly… what are you dreaming of these days?

The only dreams I remember involve driving on the motorway - usually the M6 in England north to south or south to north. 

It all comes down to light, time and distance…

David’s List

Your favorite museum or bookstore?

Museum: Insel Hombroich, Neuss (near Dusseldorf)

Bookshop: Compendium Books, Camden High Street, London (closed 2000)

(This bookshop was my education.)

The last book you read:

Morris Minor - Owners Workshop Manual - Haynes, 1984 edition

A line that stuck with you?

‘To live is to leave traces.’ Walter Benjamin, 1934

A space that holds meaning for you (past or present)?

Where I happen to be at any given time.

Your favourite moment in a typical day?

The current moment.

Your favourite app or account you follow on IG?

Apple Maps - lost without it!

Oxford English Dictionary - lost without it!