Sisyphus Happy

Backlit presents ‘Sisyphus Happy’ a new exhibition featuring works by Robert Luzar and Rachel Maclean. In reference to these two diverse artists we have been exploring the Greek Myth of Sisyphus and Albert Camus’ collection of related essays which elaborate the philosophical consequences of the absurd.

In the Greek myth, Sisyphus rebelled against the gods by aspiring to break down the differentiation between the divine and the human and attempted to share their creative powers. His punishment was to be compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. In Camus’ collection of essays ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ he attempts to rescue Sisyphus, and with him all those who perceive their lives as futile and hopeless labour.

‘The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy!’ - Albert Camus

It is here in our daily struggle that we find a fulfilment within our subsistence.

“I said that the world was absurd but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them together. It binds them one to the other as only hatred can weld two creatures together. This is all I can discern clearly in this measureless universe where my adventure take place. Let us pause here. “

In Robert Luzar’s performance works, we see him resist materials and objects in an attempt to record his physical investigations into mark making. Akin to Sisyphus’ journey up the mountain Robert refigures heroic human labour as a complex and interwoven physical, moral, and spiritual movement from the profane into the domain of the sacred, from earthly mutability to an immutable eternity.

Sisyphus’ rock burden not only symbolizes the monstrous weight of human existence, but also the primordial spirit of the world and all its cruel and mysterious powers.

‘Life will be more fully lived in so far as it has no meaning’ – Albert Camus

Rachel Maclean’s bold video works represent a radical individualism that
parallels Sisyphus’ epic journey to become coequal with his idols. As we venture through her saturated worlds of iconic characters and mythological creatures we become absorbed by her efforts.

And thus the battle ends. Only to start again.

Main Gallery
Robert Luzar,
Rachel Maclean

Studio Gallery
Matthew Chesney sculptural video encounter “Battle Of the Rock” illustrates the fragility of our protagonist, Sisyphus. In his new installation Chesney will be displaying his reworking of pre-existing super 8 materials in a fashioned response to Sisyphus’s plight through the physical colouring, editing and layering of each frame; rotating through analogue equipment in an endless cycle.

Project Space
Minor Claustrophobia:
“A pre - requisite for an artwork that manifests a counter consciousness is that the separation which existed between the artist and the audience is closed, that they become mutually engaged, to the point where the audience become the rationale in both the making and the reception of the work.” Steven Willats, Society through art.

Lacuna (n) an empty space or a missing part; a gap.
Minor Claustrophobia explores curatorial ideas inspired by the concept of audience reaction and interaction.

Rosie Burnett, Joseph Cerski, Naomi Gordon, Darren Ralphs, Bobby Sayers