Interview: Jamie Fitzpatrick Tackles Historical Power in ‘Memorials to Sausage Politics’

Emerging from piles of rubble and detritus, a terrifying wigged figure leers at you with a melting clown-like smile as you enter Jamie Fitzpatrick’s latest install, Memorials to Sausage Politics, at Edinburgh Printmakers.

Fitzpatrick’s monumental, disintegrating sculptures and accompanying series of prints question and subvert the authority we are presented with through public statues. Whilst tackling the sombre themes of legacy, historical power, and, in many cases, oppression, the work embodies juxtaposing visuals in Spitting Image style caricatures of these historical figures. Rendered in bold primary colours and metallics, the work is both eye-catching and slightly garish and we are left with a sense of disquietening mockery.

I find Fitzpatrick surrounded by paint swatches and wearing work gear ready to complete the works he created in collaboration with master printer, Jordan McQuaid, during his residency at the iconic building in Edinburgh’s West End.

When discussing the use of humour in his art, he explains he doesn’t see it as satirical, as it’s not a response to a particular person or event, but a more general comment on authority. Is the humour in itself a political act, though? Perhaps, as he explains, he wants his art to appeal to a wider audience and make galleries more inviting by avoiding a dry political commentary with this comic approach.

Despite the whimsical nature of his work, Fitzpatrick says he doesn’t want people to go away happy. He ‘want[s] people to go away scared’.

The sculptures, once created with polystyrene and wax, were fragile and at once threatening. Swaying in the air-con of a gallery in New York, the audience were wary of getting too close. Now developed in more solid, permanent materials, so they can withstand travel and time, Fitzpatrick has worked hard to develop an aesthetic which still reflects the delicate nature of these original works and give the feeling that they are about to fall over. Their impending demise could be read as both structurally symbolic of the danger power presents, but perhaps a future possibility for monuments and the authority they represent.

A sense of ‘apprehension’ and fear is certainly evident in both the sculptural works he is currently installing, as they topple and slide over the plinths. The verdigris elements and classical references in the neck-tie and powdered wig leave the audience in no doubt as to whom the mockery is intended for.

Fitzpatrick’s sculptures are accompanied by new, large-scale works developed from the artist’s collaging process. Layers of metallic screen-printing and the viscous, impasto-style oil bar lend these 2D works a real sculptural body and reflect the deteriorating mass of the sculptures. They include imagery of iconic monuments from the artist’s home city, Edinburgh, which he captured by rising early on Sunday mornings and getting up close with them on a six-foot ladder.

From this position, he says you really appreciate the size of these statues and the power they are given as they loom over you. Something he replicates by using the height of the gallery and hanging the work up high so you ‘feel the dominance’.

He has also created a larger work on a one-to-one scale of these sculptures to fill the whole of the back wall of the gallery space. This piece will again stand over the audience and highlight the audacious size of these public monuments which litter the city’s landscape.

Although the work appropriates aspects of public sculptures, they very much undermine the power they are attributed by producing them in ‘monstrous form’. Fitzpatrick explains that he wants to interrogate: ‘What it says about us when these [sculptures] are put in the public environment?’ Maybe, what hierarchies are implied in our society when only rich white men are celebrated in these towering behemoths?

And although he doesn’t give any answers, the implications are clearly negative. While he doesn’t want to see them torn down, he does want ‘people to acknowledge what these [sculptures] are. And to question them when we walk [around].’ And, in discussing that these public sculptures perhaps become invisible through familiarity, the artist wants his work to ‘draw attention to something that wants to remain unseen’.

Although Memorials to Sausage Politics is not about a particular time or place, the title and themes can certainly be seen in the zeitgeist of today’s political landscape. The absurdity and abuse of powers of old can’t help but lead us to question the failings in our current systems and leadership and, as Fitzpatrick intended, leave us feeling scared.

Jamie Fitzpatrick, Memorials to Sausage Politics is on show until 25th October at Edinburgh Printmakers.