Michael Fullerton

Michael Fullerton (born 1971, Bellshill, based in Glasgow) works in a variety of media, including painting, printmaking and sculpture. His interest in the transmission and reception of information, as well as his chosen medium’s ability to mediate between these two points, bring about a complex network of truth and judgment, where subjects are split between their physical presence as an artwork and the realities they imply.

Fullerton’s MAP commission extends these investigations. Relating to his new body of work currently on show at Chisenhale Gallery, London, the commission incorporates the printed page in a game of exposure and concealment. ‘Columbia’ is a motif that ambiguously unravels into multiple meanings: the literary name for the USA, the space shuttle and CBS (Columbia Broadcasting Systems) who infamously tricked America with Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds . Fullerton considers the various associations with travel and discovery and the means by which these discoveries are divulged.

Across the following eight pages the artist also interweaves political histories of espionage, intrigue and tragedy, underscoring perceived realities and humanising processes of secrecy and dissimulation. The reccurring image of British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing alludes to his involvement as a code breaker during World War II, while the personal scandals of the defense technology corporation Lockheed Martin expose professional vulnerability in the light of discrediting actions. Fullerton’s commission is a parenthetical clamshell that comprises tangentially related and semi-historical fragments.