ARTISTS TALKING

Artists’ collective Brass Art have been ‘casting’ themselves as shadows, phantoms, reflections and miniatures to manipulate, distort and otherwise inhabit private and public space. Their practice incorporates drawing, sculpture, video, installation and performance, and whilst often employing the latest digital technology, refers back to the arcane world of zoetropes and magic lanterns.

Their exhibition, entitled ‘Skyscraping’, incorporates new work made over two years in discussion with Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It includes miniature 3D models of the artists, joined in procession by other objects and animals, all of which are lit by a light source attached to a moving model train. The effect is a carnivalesque danse macabre thrown across the gallery walls.

In Out of Thin Air, one of two new video pieces, a digitally rendered shadow of a hot air balloon moves slowly across a suburban landscape. A soundtrack of voices and noises from unseen and impossibly close sources is audible throughout, as is the rhythmic sound of the balloon’s burner. As with all of Brass Art’s creative output the viewer is transported to a strange alternative world and left wondering what is real and what is not.

‘Brass Art: Skyscraping’, Bothy Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 15 March – 22 June. www.ysp.co.uk

www.brassart.org.uk

Artists’ stories:
Kristin Mojsiewicz talks about her practice and the importance of navigating networks.