Roddy Mathieson (b. 1973) graduated in sculpture from Duncan Of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, in 1997 and thereupon established ‘The Mobile Foundry’, undertaking public art projects, commissions, exhibitions and workshops. He works at Duncan of Jordanstone, where he has also set up a foundry facility (DJCAD Foundry), supporting students from across the art college in a variety of metal-casting projects. In this role he has cast the college’s BAMS Student Medal Project entries over the past decade. Recently much of his creative output has been focused on a busy family life, work, and delivering foundry workshops around the country. Over the past year he has begun to make new works looking at the social/political issues that have arisen and dominate our times and at our perception of who we are.
The artist writes about his BAMS medal: ‘There are three elements to the medal, which came together in its making. Firstly I had been thinking about the verb “to cast” and what kinds of things are cast. I have also been following – and been concerned about – the decline of politics in recent years, descending into fear, hate and lies. At the same time political movements were being exposed for stealing voters’ personal data and targeting them with bespoke propaganda via social media to influence their thinking. I began to see a connection between the “cast” elements (actors, shadows, doubts, aspersions, stones, news, votes, nets, die) and the politics, the two things following a pattern of manipulation. The medal was finished in a minimal way, allowing the text to be the substance of the work, whilst the smooth black patina and polished surface give it the look of a digital device, television, laptop, tablet, mobile.’m