| A residency at Studio 4, Chisenhale Art Place in 2013 gave Sam Hodge the chance to make Repetition and Difference. This is a life-sized representation in etching, of a broken, triple height window in the derelict part of the old factory building at Chisenhale. Each pane has been broken on a different occasion and in a different way. | | 
Repetition and Difference triptych
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| This contrasts with repetitive grid structure of the windows, producing something analogous to a scientific experiment, or perhaps just the record of a series of unfortunate events. | | 
Repetition and Difference - Part 1
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installation view
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| The etchings are made on steel plates cut to the same size as the windowpanes. The voids are given a velvety black form where the acid bites, while the natural tooth of the slightly rusted steel gives a pale grey tone to the areas of glass. | | 
detail: pane 10 6
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| Printmaking has always been a way of mass-producing images, but in this piece the artist is not just creating an edition by repeatedly printing from one plate, but making a series of prints in which the production of the plates is also repeated over and over again on an industrial scale. | | 
installation view
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| In the last few years Sam Hodge has been particularly drawn to broken glass; tracing and printing crack patterns in windows and mobile screens. | | 
Repetition and Difference - Part 2
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| Accidental or intentional violence damages glass irreversibly, destroying its smooth, simple transparency and reminding us of the fragility of manmade things. | | 
detail: pane 7 7
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| Its sharpness is dangerous and its complexity unwelcome. | | 
installation view
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| Because of this, broken glass is often used as a metaphor for the irreversible fracture of a person or society, but complexity and imperfection have their own beauty. | | 
Repetition and Difference - Part 3
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| By reproducing the fractures using traditional printing techniques, she is responding to the destructive work of a moment with painstaking craft; drawing attention to the diversity of structure and form in the patterns made, and connecting them with the history of representation of natural forms. | | 
detail: pane 9 2
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| The transformation of glass into print in Repetition and Difference also encourages the viewer into pareidolia - the tendency to invest abstract, randomly produced shapes with meaning; seeing, for example, animal and human figures in the voids. | | 
open day
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| This work has been selected for The Creekside Open 2015 by Richard Deacon. This will the first time the triptych has been displayed as one 5 m high piece. | | 
detail: pane 9 7
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| The Creekside Open runs at APT Gallery, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London SE8 4SA from June 11th to July 5th 2015. | | 
open day
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