Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Jerwood Space, London
11 August – 9 September
Reviewed by: Ruth Beale
Working in miniature allows artists to exert absolute control over their tiny creations, to play god in the manipulation of condensed situations and environments. It is an act of defiance in the face of all the things in life out of our control, to hold the power in one’s own fantasy dominion.
The seven artists in ‘The miniature worlds show’ share concerns both with scale, and with the construction of introspective and fantastical worlds. A twist on our childish attractions to all things small, the most interesting works are the sets in which apocalyptic visions and pseudo-natural creations are played out. From Laura Youngson Coll’s Swarm of miniature birds, to Andrea Gregson’s peep-show installations, we are given a glimpse into realms normally on the fringes of our vision or consciousness.
Otherworldly sci-fi jungles populate Liz Dawson’s small-scale canvases, apparently derived from her own miniature models and collages. By contrast, Paul Collinson’s photo-real paintings show a close-up view of hobbyist model-making props. Far from the perfect idealised world of the train-set or neat doll’s house, a crumpled toy car and mini Grecian pillar highlight the model-maker’s ability to destroy as well as create.
In Michael Whittle’s Thirty Abreast in Good Order a row of mounted knights are drawn in intricate detail, but so that the identity of each one is lost in the procession. Vines grow on their absurdly long spears like neglected armies in a long-outgrown game of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’.
Tessa Farmer’s Apocalypse-in-micro Parade of the Captive Hedgehog is a real treat; a twisted world of twelve-millimetre evil winged skeletons, riding wasp-back in torturous revelry. You can almost hear their wicked cackles as they taunt their insect captives. The work appeals to our basic love of spectacle and fascination with the circus-macabre, and has the populist appeal of any mind-bogglingly painstaking and intricate work.
Adam Humphries’ Void Former II is an uneasy juxtaposition to Farmer’s installation, however, as it works on the opposite extremity of scale. I would like to have seen Humphries’s installation alongside his digital print 63 Microns and Smaller, as they both play on an exchangeable micro and macro. The print features a vast plain of stones and boulders, impossible to pin down as epic landscape or close-up detail. The installation: giant polystyrene flowers, nails, toy dogs and boulders scattered on across the gallery, dwarfing the viewer and making us the minutiae. The only work to remind us of our own insignificance, it is a jolt from the comfort of being the observer.
The spirit of this exhibition is the oft-reported return to a well-crafted, hand-made approach. A joy found in making and storytelling. Coupled with an all-round captivation with the tiny, it provides appealing escapism into microcosmic dystopian realities.
Writer detail:
Ruth Beale is an artist and curator of Aurora Projects.
Venue detail:
Jerwood Space (The)
171 Union Street, LONDON SE1 0LN
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