Tim Chapman, Still from Untitled (Slow motion dart), 2008. Courtesy of the artist 

 

Timothy Chapman

24 August - 20 September 2009 in the Square² Gallery

Untitled (Slow motion dart) 2008
DVD
duration: 64 minutes, 58 seconds, looped
Courtesy of the artist

Vintage stereotypes of boyish play – cops and robbers, fort building, climbing trees – preoccupy Timothy Chapman’s recent work Boys Will be Boys, to which this film relates. Essentially simply documenting a slow motion dart repeatedly hitting a pane of glass, the video is also part of a wider exploration into the seemingly inherent fixation of young boys with play-fighting. It questions whether war, weapon and superhero play, often criticised for validating violence as a means of problem resolution, can simply be broken like a bad habit, or is more deeply embedded in boys’ concept of masculinity and understanding of their world.

The work is also autobiographical. The artist recounts childhood visits to his grandparents, where all day he played with spring loaded toy guns which shot rubber darts. In the evenings, exhausted from a day of chasing and shooting, he’d cross-stitch with his grandmother. Acknowledging that in our culture ‘warrior narratives’ represent a lineage from Beowulf to Batman, Chapman speculates that perhaps there is also room within these stereotypes for a richer understanding of masculinity than simply not feminine. He quotes a comic classroom conversation:

Karen: Girls are nicer than boys.

Janie: Boys are bad. Some boys are bad.

Paul: Not bad. Pretend bad, like bad guys.

Karen: My brother is really bad.

Teacher: Aren’t girls ever bad?

Paul: I don’t think so. Not very much.

Teacher: Why not?

Paul: Because they like to colour so much. That’s one thing

I know. Boys have to practice running.

While the dart is no longer considered an innocuous toy, this work allows that boys perhaps do have to ‘practice running’, and that aspects of childhood play remain resonant, joyful and not-so-serious narratives.

Tim Chapman graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (first class honours) in 2009. He recently participated in Elam Art Upfront, which was part of the Auckland Festival 2009. (http://www.nzartmonthly.co.nz/elamupfront_001.html).