Marina Xenofontos
Rainbow, 2020

Rainbow consists of a copper tube spun on its axis using an industrial motor. Employing a language of mechanical stamina, the work’s rotation occurs as a slippage between poetic and literal observation. Cave-painting-like markings etched across the works surface during production and transport form an ongoing record of the works history, while simultaneously reporting to copper’s use as a tool and art making material from its earliest forms in antiquity. On each side of the tube, the copper has also been burned using a blowtorch creating spectrums of colour that mimic the refraction of rainbows. The materials’ productive nature is undercut by such gestures, both the motor and copper are not permitted to function towards their usual ends, yet their symbolic emulations are not fully emancipated.

Text by the artist.