Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast
30 June – 27 August
Reviewed by: Gemma Tipton
Exploring an interest in the precarious balances that exist within the human body and mind, Cecily Brennan’s ‘Balancing’ exposes the fragility of the equilibrium between such oppositions as health and illness, preservation and harm, strength and fragility, beauty and ugliness, attraction and repulsion.
The physicality of the works themselves underline this theme, as the delicacy of small egg tempera works depicting images of diseased, wounded and broken skin, creates a counterpoint to cast pieces in stainless steel. Hinge-ons for bad days, two stainless steel pieces of leg-armour, complete with wounded and stitched skin, have been cast from wax, preserving the physical qualities of damaged flesh. The enduring, tarnish-resistant nature of the steel emphasises the difference between its own endurance and that of the human body, whilst also pointing towards the resilience of the body as it heals after harm.
The idea of harm is investigated in a series of video works, which also address the health of the mind and its responses to pressure. Collar, a large and arresting DVD projection, shows a woman grasping at a collar around her neck, her attempts to release its constriction causing blood to flow from it, drenching her white t-shirt. In Rubber Band, a left hand plucks at a rubber band stretched around the right arm, obsessively creating red wheals, the rhythmic ‘ping’ of snapping elastic the soundtrack to repetitive pain. That these are no glib responses to the issues of self-harm is illustrated in the interview, Tony. Accompanying a photograph of an old man, his left arm crazed with scars, Tony describes in matter-of-fact terms a lifetime of compulsive self-injury.
Brennan’s explorations of health, illness, damage and recovery are more recently developing into an interest in physics. Hero’s Engine sees the physicality of the body becoming abstracted into a scientific examination of action and reaction, cause and effect. Thought-provoking, disturbing and yet beautiful, these are highly intelligent works, which linger on in the mind.
Writer detail:
Gemma Tipton is a writer on art and architecture based in Dublin and is editor of Contexts magazine.
Venue detail:
Ormeau Baths Gallery
18a Ormeau Avenue, Belfast BT2 8HS
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