crooked @ House Gallery

Glimpsed: an exhibition of 3d and video works at House Gallery, Camberwell, London, by members of South London Women Artists in February 2011.

My installation was entitled crooked....

'golden' melt-water - day 1

“…history books have claimed that “camber”’ meant crooked and that water from the Camber Well could cure “crippled or crooked people”.

 The Telegraph May 200

Lepers and cripples, expelled from the City of London, were sent to Camberwell and treated by the church of St Giles and the healing waters from its wells.

crooked was a process of related events that took place over the two weeks of the exhibition:

Ice, steel bowl, linen - day1

crooked: a block of ice made from water from the roof of St Giles Parish Church was suspended by a linen cloth. St Giles is the patron saint of cripples and a church dedicated to him has stood in Camberwell since Anglo-Saxon times.

I have worked with ice, linen and ‘gold’ for a several years.The palette of materials hints at an alchemy – materials transformed and states altered. 

In the early hours of Saturday morning 22 January 2011 a serious car crash took place outside the Gallery. We arrived to set up the exhibition with the crumpled wrecks of two cars, one with its roof ripped off, being towed away.

debris of the car crash was frozen into bowls of ice

The 'bowls' of ice contained the remains of the wall demolished by the impact of one of the vehicles: shattered car headlamps, bricks and mortar rubble. As the ice thawed they were released into the golden melt-water, which gold splashed onto the surrounding floor.  Afer about 30 hours the linen also was released: swaddling, bandage, shroud perhaps?

The steel bowl transformed by melt water  day 1

Bodies Transformed @ The Crypt Gallery, London

22- 29 April 2010

After Thoughts:
The performance of ‘The Descent’ at the PV was spell binding with spectacular performances from Divya as Inanna and Hazel as narrator and ‘Neti the Gatekeeper’. Divya entered the space down the flight of stone entrance steps in full gold and red bejeweled regalia – which was a fitting way to enter the Under World and made a powerful impression on many people. The sound of her ankle bells and stamping feet and Hazels’ powerful narration had a hypnotic and meditative effect.

There were between 150 -200 people at the PV which filled the labyrinthine venue, but the main Crypt corridor is a difficult linear space for the audience, so there were some issues of visibility. BUT overall the feedback was great and I feel that Inanna the ‘Performance’ and ‘Piece’ made the sometimes fraught journey from ‘ideal’ to ‘real’.

The Crypt has such a powerful atmosphere that time spend invigilating had a strange surreal quality, with occasional sorties above ground for coffee and sun. ‘The Descent’ is a chilling tale and I feel that I would like to make a sunny ascent; perhaps there is another piece there?

The contrast between ‘Ice and Fire’ and ‘Inanna’ is striking in the photographs and it was good to see the linen fall out this time. The seven bowls worked on several levels:

• the seven gates to the Under World
• Inanna’s seven ‘holy powers’ which were stripped from her during her descent
• one bowl for each day of the show- placed under the ice daily

‘Intimate Makings’, the new series of prints based on the making of the ‘Crucible’ looked well in the Crypt, but I think will look better in a less loaded space, and I’m looking forward to seeing them on white walls in ‘Open Studio’ June 19-20 2010.

Please make a note in your diaries!

Ice and Fire revisited

Helen Gilbert, the project coordinator for Ice and Fire at St Ethelburga's has written a review for the monthly newsletter - thank you Helen.

http://stethelburgas.org/art-reconciliation

Helen mentions the fact that the ice, unexpectedly did not melt completely which got me thinking about the endings:
The event had two endings; parallel narratives - an internal and external:

• The un-finished business of melting and release 'in the interior space' of the building - the ongoing  process of transformation.
• The water returned to its source 'out in the city' - with flashes of gold glinting in the long drop down to the Thames, and then out into the darkness downstream. An unexpectedly beautiful farewell;  release and re-union with the stream flowing into forgetting and unknowing. I felt this ending was a resolution; a trusting to the tide to carry it home.

Bodies…

‘Marx’s designation of the single artifact as a “body” is at some moments based on the concept of use value (the woven cloth refers to the human body because it has “use to” the living body…) and is at other moments based on its being the materialized objectification of bodily labor (the woven clothe a material memorialization of the embodied work of spinning, for it endures long after the physical activity has itself ceased: “the worker has spun and the product is a spinning”) …Thus the activity of “making” comes to be the activity of “animating the external world”, either described as a willed projection of aliveness (“Yarn with which we neither weave nor knit is cotton wasted. Living labor must seize on these things, awake them from the dead”)…’

from ‘The Body in Pain – The Making and Unmaking of the World’ by Elaine Scarry

I have never read Marx so I was bowled over by this; my work as the “making of bodies” or in the case of my new print series “the memorialization of the making of bodies”. I disagree with the concept that the World (raw material) exists purely to be animated by the labour of mankind; since the Earth is continually re-making itself without our interference! But, my work – which relies on the natural, innate processes inherent in materials, is  a ‘making’ by me with the Earth, as a farmer ‘produces’ crops with/from the soil? My work is specifically a "rusting", an "oxidisation" or a "splattering"...
That feels good!

The Descent of Inanna - the oldest myth in the world.

‘The Descent’ dates from 4000 BCE and survives on clay tablets written in cuneiform text found in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. It relates the story of Inanna, the goddess of Heaven and Earth, and her descent through seven gates to the Underworld, and the subsequent stripping of her seven holy powers. The myth forms the basis of my latest ice-melt which incorporates seven bowls, and will be interpretated by dance on the opening night.

The symbolism of number seems to have always been important. According to J.E. Cirlot seven symbolises perfect order, and corresponds to the seven Direction of Space, the seven pointed star, the seven chakras, the planetary spheres and the moon (since 7 x 4 = the 28 days of the month).

Invitation

A group show of sculpture, video, painting, drawing and prints

Victoria Ahrens
Dina Christy
Jane Dalton
Sara Mark
Bruno Mazzotta
Lisa Payne
Glen Snow
Kim Thornton

Video link to You Tube...

Try

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXvp_q4YYw

A basic handheld video giving the general idea...a more professional video of the event is being prepared.