I TELL YOU THE TRUTH (2010) Floor based 3D text. MDF, paint, wood, screws, glue (dimensions: 0.5 m x 10 m approx).

I TELL YOU THE TRUTH was commissioned for Murmur, a group exhibition at Waterside Contemporary, formerly Waterside Project Space (London). It has also been included in group shows at Motorcade/FlashParade (Bristol), and Bury City Art Gallery (Bury).

Images (top): Installation at Waterside Contemporary (London) Images: Courtesy Waterside Contemporary.

Images (middle): Installation at Motorcade/FlashParade (Bristol) Images: Courtesy Motorcade/FlashParade.

Images (bottom): Installation at Bury City Art Gallery (Bury).

Press:

'Kate Pickering’s site specific intervention I TELL YOU THE TRUTH (2010) stands as a partial blockage at the entrance/exit point of the exhibition. Bearing religious overtones and alluding otherwise to the relationship between art, convictions and beliefs, the letters of the statement ‘I TELL YOU THE TRUTH’ come across as an open manifesto, a prophecy, a commandment, and abstract claim all at once.'

Fiction Counter Fiction: Murmur, A Glossary Eliza Tan (Murmur Catalogue, Waterside Project Space)

In I TELL YOU THE TRUTH (2010), Pickering presents a moral absolute. The concreteness of this statement is made convincing by the appearance of declarative, bold, black glossy letters. However, from behind, the means of construction are revealed - paint marks, screws and unstable wooden supports - all of which undermine the authority of the rhetoric employed. 

Between The Lines: Exploring Language Systems Helen Hillyard