ANDREW & EDEN KÖTTING

— We have been making work together for almost twenty years, both in the French Pyrenees and also in the UK. Traditionally Still Life paintings would often contain allegorical symbols relating to the objects depicted on the artists’ studio table. This is something which connects directly with the This Our Still Life project as a whole. Hereunder in chronological order of their making are a few of the drawings that we have produced as well as some of the prose that was generated around the time of their making.

I’m dragging things out my nose again

And not even the
flying birds of meaning can reach me
but the sun filtering through the rotten beams certainly shed some light
what can be said is that
seeing the unseen carries with it the importance of the insignificance

Votre beau discourse
Me as
Morbid melancholic
Fascinated by mortality
Contemplation as a means of navigation
Into the undulating sea
Of inevitability
Probably
And all because I’m nearly fifty and you still can’t talk.

Trivial amongst the elements
I am trivial amongst the elements
We are trivial amongst ourselves
The mountains plunge us into a perspective that I can ill afford
At this end of life.
Plight
Full.

—

Andrew Kötting was born in 1959 and grew up in Elmstead Woods. He then became a Lumberjack in Scandinavia and a Scrap Metal Collector in South London before making GALLIVANT, THIS FILTHY EARTH and SWANDOWN. In 2006 he was made a Professor of Time Based Media at UCA, England.

Eden Kötting was born in 1988 and grew up on The Pepys Estate in Deptford with a rare neurological syndrome before moving to St Leonards-on-Sea with her father Andrew. She has been drawing all of her life and has collaborated with her father on numerous projects including; MAPPING PERCEPTION, HIDING FROM THE BIG GUNS and LOUYRE THIS OUR STILL LIFE.

www.andrewkotting.com
www.bfi.org.uk/this_our_still_life