Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
MAC, Birmingham
Reviewed by: Matt Price
Curran’s work is partly inspired by mid-nineteenth century scenic wallpapers that often revolved around the dialectic of man and nature. The work from which the exhibition takes its title is a large sheet of paper onto which small pieces of cut-out paper have been glued, forming a colourful landscape of plants and trees. It is an attractive and stimulating piece, keeping the eyes busy while leaving room for the imagination to try to piece together what’s what – are some of the leaves birds in flight, bluebells or butterflies, undergrowth or woodland creatures?
This delicate and dainty piece from 2006 is tinged with chinoiserie, an undercurrent continued in the collage diptych Desert Island Discontent from the same year. Here the exotic imagination is given more to feast on, with densely layered paper leaving little of the support showing. This strange and luscious landscape provides plenty of visual information about the flora depicted, giving any proficient horticulturalist a sporting chance of identifying the diverse species. The colours are vibrant, with luminous yellow clouds contrasted against rich blue tree trunks, crimson treetops, pink flowers and khaki foliage. Such combinations really shouldn’t work together, but Curran pulls it off with conviction.
The artist’s interests extend beyond the figurative into abstraction in a series of five small gouache works entitled Compositions I-V (2007). Comprising a plethora of angular shapes in myriad colours, the effect is like looking into a diamond or an explosion of crystal cut glass. Rendered with painstaking precision, they offer a charming and intriguing exploration of space, shape and colour. These preoccupations are developed on a larger scale in several acrylic on linen works, combining opaque and translucent brushwork in interlocking tesserae of varying shapes and sizes in such a way as to create a lively, technicolour dialogue between the flatbed plane and three dimensional form.
Matt Price is an editor and writer based in Birmingham and London.
Writer detail:
Matt Price
Venue detail:
mac
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH
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