Mark Fox, interview

Mark Fox, who was brought up as a Catholic, has issues with certain of the religion’s doctrines and belief systems, in what he calls a “love/hate response”

Intersection: International Art and Culture
Arthur M Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University, Beijing
27 May – 27 August 2018

His work, Offering, is a jumble of tangled words taken from religious text, each cut out individually as if it were a bead on a rosary. The cutting suggests a form of penance or prayer, each word handled, considered, the whole reassembled doctrine then draped over a ladder that had been utilised in the installation. Fox says that the ladder represents his family, who are blue collar, as if to reiterate that the tenets of Catholicism are upheld by such salt-of-the-earth people – who should be able to access them without intermediaries, a contention that has long roiled the Catholic church.

Interview by LILLY WEI
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY