Quaife, MJ., 2014.

Like a Child Running a Stick Along a Fence

For his second exhibition with WORKS|PROJECTS Magnus Quaife invites you on to the set of a new production.
In a seminal scene from Steven Spielberg's 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfus, uses objects that surround him in his home and garden to make a scale model of Devil's Mount. His sculpture begins as humble mashed potato mound but grows to dominate the living room of his house. Neary, like so many great artists from fiction, is driven mad by his vision, but eventually realises he is being called to the site of an alien landing.
Cezanne's fascination with Montaigne St Victoire that dominates the skyline of his hometown of Aix en Provence was similarly obsessive. After returning to Aix from Paris he spent over 20 years repeatedly painting the mountain, making more than 80 representations in oil and watercolour. The monumental nature of this undertaking becomes even more apparent when we understand that Cezanne's would take 100 sessions to paint a still life or 150 sittings for a portrait.
Through the mediums of painting and sculpture Quaife re-imagines Close Encounters. Now set in 1877 the lead character is Paul Cezanne, who uses his studio not his family home, to build an obsessive sculpture in.
WORKS|PROJECTS becomes Cezanne's studio. Quaife plays Cezanne. And rather than modelling Devil's Mount Cezanne realises a monumental vision of his beloved Mont Sainte Victoire.