About a Minute was the inaugural exhibition at The Gopher Hole, a new project space in Hoxton curated by Beatrice Galilee. We were invited to respond to a premise – the idea that today, a minute is all we seem to have.

In collaboration with artist Robin Duttson, we were inspired by the fact that a work of art is likely to be contemplated for less than 59 seconds in the gallery. We wanted therefore to allow people to take a piece of the art home with them to be able to contemplate it further.

The piece starts ‘complete’ and becomes uniquely ‘eroded’ away as people visit the gallery. This erosion transforms the original piece in an unpredictable and unique way as the protagonists are not defined – they may be timid, ‘nibbling’ away at the edges taking small pieces only, or greedy and bold, going straight for the centre and taking several pieces away at a time.

The piece is a lino cut, hand printed using oil based ink in a spectrum of colours  starting with ultramarine and ending with process yellow. The perforated watercolour paper tears with just the right amount of resistance to make the process of extracting a mini artwork really satisfying.