Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
An Tuireann, Skye
28 September – 10 November
Reviewed by: Steven McKenzie
‘Sealladh 6 – Nexus:Communities’ explores working collaboratively with artists and organisations. As the ‘Sealladh’ series at An Tuireann focuses on working with Highland artists for 2007, the ‘Nexus’ project run by Limousine Bull Artists’ Collective invited the gallery to nominate a Highland artist to be part of their collaborative residencies. That artist is Lisa O’Brien, paired with Lindsay Brown; the other participants are Duncan Hart and Bill Thompson, Sera Irvine and Andrea Sayers, and Mike Samson and Shaun MacDonald.
Throughout June, one-week residencies with each pair were held and completed with a one-day exhibition at the Limousine Bull space. Domesticity, nostalgia, childhood and language are the four counterpoints of which the artists interpret ‘communities’. A healthy selection of focus, perhaps? The reality is that most of it is superficial and obvious, and the strongest work that comes through is not from the collaborative element but when the artists fall ‘safe’ and go back into what they know. It is the strength of the artists’ individual practice that provides the substance of this show. As a collaboration between the artists it disappoints. The reason: one week is just not long enough! The ‘Nexus’ concept is great but the prescriptive structure and need for an outcome in this short-scale residency is blindly optimistic. The process lacks time to allow ideas to germinate through intuition and discourse, and upon scrutiny the work is aesthetically interesting but simply embryonic.
The obvious differences between the Limousine Bull exhibition and the collective show at An Tuireann are two important factors. Firstly, all work is shown together and secondly the show runs for six weeks.
Artists Duncan Hart and Sera Irvine are commendable and embrace the challenge to develop their work site specifically, creating new work for the space. Hart’s naïve, sinister dreamlike images are drawn onto wallpaper and then pasted onto the wall, a surreal interpretation of his childhood memories analysed as an adult. These drawings have the soundtrack of Thompson’s multi-layered sound installation. Adopted soft toys emanate nursery rhymes and bass drones that flux from silence into a complex interweaving, that works in symbiosis with Hart’s drawings and places the viewer into a pseudo consciousness. Alongside, Sayers’ picnic is full of innocence and black humour. Hundreds of sugar mice surround a picnic blanket that serves tea and fruitcake. This too interacts with Thomson’s sound piece successfully, due to the well-curated space. Irvine’s series of monoprints were developed from photographs taken during the residency, and now serve as a snapshot of emotion from her anthropomorphised chairs. O’Brien suspends the Whirly Gig from the ceiling, with a backdrop of a documented video of the pairing creating a mobile radio, a definitive symbol of communication. Samson’s interactive collapsible boxes invite the viewer to engage playfully and create a dialogue.
This invitation, and the one by Irvine to sit and listen to Salsa Celtica, begins to formulate a definition of ‘communities’ and it is not one we expect. All welcome, but you are isolated and on your own! Eight artists, several elements making an exhibition and each separate factor represents an equal part of a community. Much like the way we either chose to live in the city or country or eat Pot Noodle or rear pigs, the roles that we all have to play are equally significant, yet distant. Perhaps the work by MacDonald sums up the idealistic aspiration of community from the song, ‘Woodstock’ by Joni Mitchell “We are Stardust, We are Golden”.
The collaborative element of this project’s concept is its defining quality. This approach allows the freedom for an artist to work out with their normal practice and use the time to engage with either a unique subject or other individuals. The main question is compromise and how artists deal with other perspectives. Ego has to go, or confrontation ensues and the work will suffer. However, projects like this are necessary to provide the platform for innovation. The process is not the risky bit; exhibiting the work is!
Steven McKenzie
www.antuireann.org.uk
www.limousinebull.org.uk
An Tuireann 1988 - 2007, see ‘Gallery closures’ news article.
Writer detail:
Steven McKenzie
Venue detail:
An Tuireann Arts Centre
Struan Road, PORTREE IV51 9EG
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