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 Miranda Blennerhassett - Untitled |
New Works through Scottish Lens The show brings together new works of three artists, all graduated from the Scottish-based art colleges in 2004: Ben Robinson and Miranda Blennerhassett, both awarded BA in sculpture in Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee and Joy Beecroft who obtained BA in painting in Glasgow School of Art. In Ben Robinson's installation piece, John Cale's and Bauhaus' "Rosegarden Funeral of Sores" covers the gallery floor space with ambiance of black, heart-shaped confetti. This wear-and-tear decorative montage accompanies "Olympia", a series of drawings on paper in black biro, a humble twist on grandeur of Francis Picabia's girly representations and Jack Vettriano's seductive narratives. In the one-second melodrama, the map-pins pierce the magic energy of Manet's eyes. What we celebrate? [A]-mused, we embark on a journey in a search of Romanticism lost; we sail away from fin-de-siecle Parisian salon into the lo-fi decadence land. In interchangeable, subtle assemblages of pot plants, emulsion paint and flat pack furniture, Miranda Blennerhassett attempts to recreate domestic comfort with a touch of ambiguity. She explores how we experience containment in the built environment and how these experiences interface with our emotional and physical dependency on nature. The gigantic projected shadows of the potted plants on the gallery wall, Baroque architectural trompe l'oeil paintings, add fluidity to sculptural piece; perhaps a decorative miniaturised replacement of nature, perhaps a cultural utopian creation, or simply, a comment on what is lost in urban spaces, organic energy. Joy Beecroft stages a scriptless drama on the pages of her oil paintings and drawings, theatre de jour , made of memories and simple, quotidian moments that persistently resonate and somehow keep on living. This empty front-stage of memory collages, although framed in the solid painted constructions with a definitiveness of textures and layers, has a back-stage of seductive realms. Reminiscence of represented moments, removed from the linearity of time, reveals a disturbing gravity of emotional intimate tension. Are things staged timelessly through remembering? Joy creates certain illusive immediacy, combining the startling images of people with more subtle representations of places where the focus disperses and expands onto space. Narratives unveil onto space we live in. Space becomes the protagonist, bound in a system of memorable places and events. Throughout the exhibition we are drawn into the world of art making which is not as what it at first appears, a magic séance of creation; the questions about the role of the artist keep creeping in. Text: Katarzyna Kosmala
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