Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast 11 April – 25 May
Reviewed by: Gavin Weston
Appropriating the word 'appropriation' for an exhibition title is a refreshingly impertinent statement to make and no other venue in these parts could be more suited for such a show than Ormeau Baths Gallery, whose very marque owes its existence to the building's former purpose. It's clever: it means that press releases and catalogues don't need to laboriously dwell on some germ of an idea to convince us that this is a show worth seeing, it just is what it is – stuff nicked from other stuff – exactly what it says on the tin. References are made to landscape painting, science, politics and popular culture. In short anything goes, with a hotchpotch of ideas from eight diverse artists, a kind of cultural stew – but pretty tasty with it.
Ian Charlesworth's 'paintings' have been wowing Belfast audiences for some years now. Looking sometimes like canvases, at other times like photograms, Charlesworth's svelte abstractions are actually made by a methodical process of gently searing and scorching his grounds. Earlier works – with no apparent subject matter or raison d'être aside from the ludicrous joy of such painstaking processes – are the visual equivalents of uplifting bursts of birdsong. This more recent body of work, Some of my friends are... filches local, paramilitary graffiti from lavatory walls, progressively overlaying them until full abstraction is achieved.
In an age when the camera often lies, lens-based work is bound to feature heavily in a show like 'Appropriation'. Susan MacWilliam takes as her source material the notion that the last images received by the retina before death can be seen clearly under the microscope, as first purported by a Dr Pollack in 1857. The potential of this discovery was immediately hailed as a means of solving murder cases and in 1888 the process was used in a vain attempt to reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper. The minutiae of this myth are fascinating, more so than MacWilliam's interventions with film footage by Dario Argento and Gabriel Soria.
Martin Healy also borrows from cinema in a series of sumptuous photographs Looking for Jody: Amityville, which use as a backdrop the small New York town of Amityville – the setting of the classic 1970's horror movie, reportedly based on a true story. Healy's fascination stems from the crossover point of memory based on cinematic experience and that of real life. The technical perfection and 'believable' crystal clarity of these images belie some unsettling undertones. The image of a rubber mask lying in the snow is obvious fabrication, but when juxtaposed with a hole – a shallow grave? – and a pretty house complete with picket fence, perception begins to waver.
Perhaps cheekiest of all in this showcase is Mary McIntyre's appropriation of formal compositions by nineteenth century German Romantic and Dutch landscape painters to comment on the contemporary landscape. Thus we find ourselves gazing at Belfast's River Lagan, with a gloriously reflected blue sky sandwiched between the grimy banks of heavy industry.
If you haven't stumbled upon Dan Shipside's reconstructions of rock climbing feats before then you'll probably love this installation and accompanying video of the 'banned' Clocks climbing route at Balls Head, Sydney. If you are familiar with his work then you could be forgiven for thinking that maybe Shipsides should get out less.
One of the most dazzling works in this show though – fittingly entitled Dazzle – is Niamh McCann's huge wall painting comprising copied and enlarged camouflage patterning from around the globe. The effect is stunning, surprising and camp as hell. It is interesting that a device intended to deceive the eye should prove to be so visually arresting. In fact it steals the show.
Writer detail:
GAVIN WESTON
is an artist based near Belfast.
Venue detail:
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