Artwork: Aha! Moment was a series of fifty text-based vinyl posters composed of quotes sourced from interviews conducted by Padmore between 2012-2014 — in which she discussed ‘Eureka moments’ with members of the public. By placing the personal in a public sphere, this work brought into question the significance or relevance of an individual’s turning-point to a mass audience.
Initially influenced by James Joyce’s, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which an epiphany is seen as ‘sudden and momentary showing forth or disclosure of one’s authentic inner self which might manifest itself in vulgarities of speech, gestures, or memorable phases of the mind’,[1] the quotes featured ranged from the melodramatic to the clichéd. Examples include: ‘It was a delicate and evanescent moment’ and ‘It suddenly dawned on me that I was really happy’. Through sharing epiphanies with the general public, Padmore’s work aimed to encourage passengers to experience their own moments of insight through example — with the hope of creating a memorable element in a typically banal journey.
The piece, inspired by artists such as Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and Edward Ruscha, used conventions of well-known text-based artworks within the context of advertising slots on public bus services. In doing so, Aha! Moment grounded itself within an art-historical context whilst utilising the platform of Brighton and Hove’s buses in order to reach the largest audience possible.
[1] James Joyce, Stephen Hero (an early draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)) quoted in Ellmann and Feidelson (eds.), The Modern Tradition, Oxford University Press, USA, p. 136 [A] (1965)
Text extracted from Art Fare: The Publication.