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Cosmic Wallpaper by Simon Patterson

Cosmic Wallpaper by Simon Patterson

Purchased by the Contemporary Art Society Special Collection Scheme on behalf of Mead Gallery, University of Warwick with funds from the Arts Council Lottery, 2002

Simon Patterson's work investigates systems and boxes through which we define and interpret information. He has taken structures such as the periodic table, smoke signals, the routines of air stewards and football formations and used them to present different information and ideas. In Cosmic Wallpaper the constellations have been renamed to provide a history of the rock band Deep Purple.

Patterson emphasises our dependence on language to identify and classify things and make sense of our world. In questioning these categories, he invites us to acknowledge the devices that we may use to condense concepts as wide and vast as the skies themselves.