Paul Tecklenberg

Safety Net, 2022,

(Laughing gas bulbs, basketball hoop and stainless-steel cable)

During the covid 19 lockdowns, when we were allowed to go outside for exercise once a day, I would find spent laughing gas bulbs in side roads, council estates and parks in Peckham. Escapism through inhaling nitrous oxide was one way people in my area coped. I started to collect them and made a seven meter escape ladder called ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, that was shown in the Royal Academy summer show in 2021. This is a follow on piece that was selected by Bill Woodrow for the 2022 RA summer show. It has been on show at the London Group Annual, Bankside Gallery and in ‘Permanent/Temporary at the Bottle Factory, Peckham.

Edition of six, two available £1600

I made this piece as a response to an artist in residence at New York Historical Society, organised by CENTRAL BOOKING. This will be on show at On The Waterfront March 3 to April 23 2023 at BWAC, 481 Van Brunt Street, Redhook, Brooklyn 11231

Nitric Oxide (laughing gas) bulbs and stainless steel cable. 2021

During the first lockdown, I found hundreds of shiny nitric oxide bottles, also known as ‘laughing gas’ bulbs, discarded in parks and housing estates in Peckham. I started to collect them to make sculptures, mindful that they are perfect vessel to carry the virus. Chefs use them to make foam and kids use them to get high. I made many false starts trying to join them with threaded rods, glue and magnets but it wasn’t working for me. They are charged objects. I was invited by Harry Pye to be in a show called ‘Smile”. This nudged me to make ‘Ha! Ha!’ I cast concrete into a squashed milk bottle and used the laughing gas bulbs as eyes and teeth. I like the dullness of the concrete against the shiny silver bulbs and the brutal humour. It effortlessly ‘floats’ on the wall even though they are very heavy. The handle doubles up as a broken nose.

This was my breakthrough moment, which lead onto making an escape ladder by threading the bulbs with stainless steel cable. I didn’t know how many I had, so I weighed ten, which came to 210 grams, 21 grams each, and the weight of the soul according to Dr Duncan MacDougall. This inspired me to call it ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ and this will be on show at St John’s church, Waterloo as part of ‘Coming Up For Air’ sculpture exhibition for The Waterloo Festival June 2021, curated by The London Group members, Clive Burton and Bill Watson. I like the rigidity of the columns next to the fluid movement of the ladder by the wind and the poignancy that it is out of reach installed very high up in front of the church’s main entrance.

http://www.thelondongroup.com/aqop-paul-tecklenberg-lg/

http://www.thelondongroup.com/pressreleases/2021_ComingUpForAir.pdf

https://www.a-n.co.uk/events/the-london-group-coming-up-for-air-waterloo-festival/

Concrete, steel rebar and wood. 2020 - 2021

I was in Saudi Arabia on a building site and I admired the improvised use of water bottles, they cover rebar ends to remove the hazard of poking your eye out. This inspired me to collect water bottles from Saudi Arabia & Qatar, and cast them in concrete on rebar stalks. Both countries are going through a rapid building boom. Fresh water is a valuable commodity there where a litre of drinking water is more expensive than a litre of petrol. The process transforms a translucent vessel into an opaque object, revealing the intricate geometry of the design and surface.

Shown in ‘Art Yard” APT studios and part of Deptford X

https://www.aptstudios.org/art-yard

https://twitter.com/londonart/status/1417393210905800704

Nitric oxide (laughing gas) bulbs and barbed wire. 2021

There is a variety of grape known as ‘black fingers’ that look like ‘laughing gas’ bulbs. The barbs are protected by ‘silver fingers’. I like the relationship between the shiny surface of the bulbs against the dulness of the barbed wire and how they neutralise the sharp barbs.

Spectacles. 2021

I have made a whole body of work out of glasses from charity shops and a relative didn’t know what to get me for Christmas, so I said ‘An assortment of glasses from a charity shop would be fine.’ She gave me a box of reading glasses and she was mortified when she realised I meant drinking glasses. They have been in my studio for the last 18 months and then, in a dream, I attached them to the wall in an oval and I worked out how to do it, draw the oval and calculate the circumference! I like the relationship between the shadows and the spectacles.

Cement mixer and inspection lamp. 2020.

This was made during the first lock down and took hundreds of 2mm drill bits. It was made for a London Group show called ‘Into the Dark III’ that didn’t physically happen in January 2021.

Sticks, fishing line and lead weights. 2018

This was part of a pop up show in a car park in Leicester Square curated by Susan Haire called ‘Embrace the Underdog’. I decided to make the star constellation ‘Canis Major’ out of sticks.

https://www.artlyst.com/features/doggie-themed-art-happening-embraces-chinese-new-year-in-london/

Silver gelatine prints, stainless steel and wood. 2018.

This plays on what is real, what is a reflection, what is an illusion, what is a pair and a pair of pears. Also, where the image is reflected, it creates a ‘Rorschach’ where all sorts of things can be seen.

This has been shown at Penwith Gallery in St. Ives, ‘40° Celsius’ ASC Art House Gallery, Croydon, London and ‘Madeleine’, Patrick Heide Gallery, London with Dillwyn Smith, Michael Roberts, Prunella Clough, Faisal Abdu’Allah, Simon Callery, Melanie Manchot, Katie Pratt, Scott Robertson, Robin Tarbet and Andrei Tarkovsky.

https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/madeleine/

Jesmonite. 2019.

‘Coming Good – Come Hell or High Water’, St. Johns, Waterloo Festival, London curated by Dr Almuth Tebbenhoff for the London Group.

http://www.thelondongroup.com/the-london-group-friends-at-waterloo-festival-2019/

https://www.artlyst.com/features/waterloo-festival-launches-at-st-johns-waterloo-revd-jonathan-evens/

Soap, iron filings and a magnet. 2019

https://www.artlyst.com/reviews/royal-academys-free-of-bombast-summer-winter-exhibition-sue-hubbard/

I was staying at a hotel where the cleaning staff replaced the soap every day with a new one in a box, which I thought was wasteful and so I started to save them. The two by three inch proportions and the curve of the bar are rather pleasing and I came up with the idea of creating a corona of iron filings on the surface in a dream. The texture of the spiky grey metal plays off the smooth waxy surface of the soap. After a while, I thought the sculpture could be a metaphor on the diminishing North Pole ice sheet and magnetic north and then during the pandemic, it could be interpreted as a corona virus entering a cell. Much of my ideas arrive in dreams and then the significance or meaning reveals its self over time.

This has been shown at the RA Summer/Winter show, 36th Annual Open at the Southwark Park Gallery and Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton as part of ‘In Plain Sight’.

Silver gelatine light drawings. 2019

1969 was a landmark year for all sorts of reasons. Open University was launched; first man on the moon; St. Mungo’s, the homeless charity was set up in London and I was born on the 4th of July. To mark this mile stone, I hosted a solo exhibition and party at hARTslane on the 4th July where 50 light drawings of 50 states in the U.S.A. will be on show and available to purchase at £50 each. Over £5000 were made which were donated to St. Mungo’s to help eleviate homelessness in London, Bristol and a donation to hARTslane to help them run experimental art exhibitions and outreach projects in schools and the community. Some are still available, so PM me if you are interested.

https://www.mungos.org/50-at-50/special-occasion/

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/paultecklenberg/

http://www.thelondongroup.com/50-years-50-states-50-pounds/

C-Type print.

Silver gelatine prints. 2017

‘An eerie series of 12 photo-montages is shown by London-based Paul Tecklenberg. The silver gelatine prints show ghost-like plastic bottles and other non-decay waste items superimposed on an elegant forest scene (in Suffolk near the River Orwell). With the discarded objects looking skeletal, it can be read as a warning of the danger of artificial degradation of the natural world.’

https://allaboutshipping.co.uk/2017/11/12/london-group-open-exhibition-2017-opens-with-exceptional-artwork/

C-Type hand printed photograms. 2016

Every time I show this piece, I invite someone to shuffle that cards and lay them face down in a grid. This determines the order the photograms are hung, which means it is a different piece every time it is shown. I am interested how we look for order and create links and narratives. In many ways, I am inviting the viewer to take ownership and complete this work. It is like a ‘dark mirror’, reflecting aspects of the viewers subconscious.

Concrete and nitric oxide (laughing gas) bulbs.

During the first lockdown, I found hundreds of shiny nitric oxide bottles, also known as ‘laughing gas’ bulbs, discarded in parks and housing estates in Peckham. I started to collect them to make sculptures, mindful that they are perfect vessel to carry the virus. Chefs use them to make foam and kids use them to get high. I made many false starts trying to join them with threaded rods, glue and magnets but it wasn’t working for me. They are charged objects. I was invited by Harry Pye to be in a show called ‘Smile”. This nudged me to make ‘Ha! Ha!’ I cast concrete into a squashed milk bottle and used the laughing gas bulbs as eyes and teeth. I like the dullness of the concrete against the shiny silver bulbs and the brutal humour. It effortlessly ‘floats’ on the wall even though they are very heavy. The handle doubles up as a broken nose.