Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
John Hansard Gallery, Southampton 27 July – 1 September
Reviewed by: Joann Drew
British photographers Andrew Cross and Dan Holdsworth share an interest in the notion of place and non-place, presenting works that magnify our impulsive desire to be directed and find direction.
The initial encounter with the outlying regions of our environment are mapped by Andrew Cross' C-type prints taken from his Year of the Artist projects in Swindon and Enfield. These small photographs concentrate on the everyday sightings we unconsciously ignore; a characterless procession of images observing the urban perimeters of our community – distribution centres, business parks and suburban housing estates. It is all too easy to just walk past, yet our traditional belief in artists' ability to reveal the unseen prompts a leap of faith urging a second glance.
Somewhat eerily, we begin to notice vague signs of life, nearly all these images point us in some direction – arrows denoting which way to go around a roundabout or a sign for the Honda factory in Swindon. We realise these locations and signs facilitate our lives, taking us somewhere but we are not sure where.
We look around the corner and find Dan Holdsworth's distinctive large-scale prints, an evocative and Promethean series of nocturnal images portraying the Ariane Rocket Base in French Guyana. Holdsworth harnesses romantic sensibilities, transforming this artificial uninhabited landscape into a seductive and unique vision. The infusion of the artist's imagination results in a richness of colour and detail that subverts the notion of natural beauty – if not an idea of the natural itself.
From a far corner of the gallery resounds the voice of Paul Schofield – extracted from Patrick Keiller's film Robinson in Space (1996). The mysterious invisible narrator is on an expedition to discover the 'problem' of England – a search that takes him to the same bleak urban spaces and industrial 'non-places' alluded to in the work of Holdsworth and Cross.
Writer detail:
JOANN DREW
is a lecturer in Fine Art and Theoretical Studies at the University of Portsmouth
Venue detail:
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