Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Stroud House Gallery, Stroud 7 July – 4 August
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Now in its third year, 'The Stroud Open' presented the work of thirteen artists.
Tristan Sean Bryan's Spatial exercise 2.1, was perhaps the most challenging of the works. It consisted of several corrugated cardboard wedge shapes, made to fit the dead space above a stairwell. The alteration set up a series of visual dissections as you descended the stairs, animating a largely ignored space.
Among the best of the 2-D contributions was the prize-winning work Bearskins by Mark Anstee, whose narrative painting challenges the phenomenon of the mythologised hero. The work recalls a life-and-death situation in which Anstee was rendered unexpectedly helpless. Along a similar vein, Patrick Coleman's Falling Man took a philosophical approach to the absurdity of the individual in vulnerable situations. With echoes of Maurizio Cattelan, a suited figure was suspended in a sea of black, looking hopelessly at odds with the predicament of his very existence.
The exhibition also played host to a number of highly crafted objects, including Carl L Swanson's finely finished copper, steel and granite pieces reminiscent of antique warfare or scientific instruments, and Katie Ambrose's beguiling glass spheres. Ambrose was represented twice in the exhibition with This way through the looking glass and Hubble. Both works used solid transparent spheres that resembled oversized human eyes. In This way through the looking glass, the eye was clamped within a rusty surgical implement and looked alarming yet helpless perched on top of a plinth. In Hubble, three huge eye-globes greeted you as you entered, poised on top of antique wooden tripods. Ambrose is powered by inquiries into theories of time – although this prior knowledge is not necessary to appreciate her well-crafted works.
In a low-ceilinged windowless room downstairs, we found Nicola Morriss' installation – the result of a YOTA residency with an insulation materials company. Four utterly grotesque figures occupied the room, three female figures stood back-to-back in a triangular configuration in one corner, and facing them was a seated male figure. He was leaning backwards on his hands eyeing-up the women, his legs splayed forward. All were sculpted out of yellow expandable-filler that gave body to their constructed muslin skins. Like a scenario from Ibiza, the dolls wore make-up, decorative tattoos and skimpy, unflattering swimwear in a desperate bid for attention. Morriss' practice addresses the futility of many social and domestic matters – her installation was both comical and repellent due to the physical ugliness of the figures and the unpleasant personalities they portrayed.
Themes of domesticity and relationships appeared in the work of Angela Mullen, whose collaged canvases recall Richard Hamilton's Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? and in David Kefford's bizarre installations. Kefford's works are essentially theatres where two identically shaped objects play out faltering relationships. The work is overtly sexual – two 3-D inflated L-shapes are bound to a white kitchen chair with black electrical tape, one straddling the other in what can only be read as the act of fellatio.
Stroud House seems a peculiar set-up – I couldn't help noticing the prominent price tags on everything regardless of the work's selling potential. The venue relies heavily on sales and exhibiting fees for its survival, yet it could hardly be described as a purely commercial gallery given its evident willingness to take uncompromising risks with the work it represents.
Writer detail:
CHRISTOPHER BROWN
is an artist based in Cardiff
Venue detail:
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