Splendid Bazaar
11/10/09
"At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go."
Excerpt from The Dubliners by James Joyce.
Entering the ground floor gallery space at One Thoresby Street, one could be forgiven for mistaking the exhibition ‘Araby’ as the work of one artist. Rich velvet purples and iodised blues on wood panels punctuated by minimalist forms and a sail-like canvas. Immediately one can see that Moot now feel at home their cavernous L-shaped gallery, with a mature approach to curating exciting new works in a confident manner.
Shows at ‘new’ Moot to date have retained the intimate qualities of shows in their old space at Daykene Street, (now home to Backlit) where viewers could get close to small delicate forms and perhaps a piece of text or everyday object which has been altered in an interesting or unusual way. ‘Araby’ is the first exhibition which encourages the visitor to consider themselves in relation to where the works have been placed – ushered elegantly by a giant suspended unprimed painting, which welcomes one in like the curve of a welcoming arm. Next, we meet sculptures of human proportions, and portrait shaped oblongs on the wall, which could be mirrors or depictions of the minimal forms made of wood and metal.
I took the opportunity to ask artists Eloise Hawser and Andrew Palmer about their work and Moot’s decision to pair them up.
Eloise Hawser: “The pairing became more apparent when the show was installed. Candice said that ‘we never quite knew why we wanted you two together’, but it really does seem to work. I guess my work is between a number of things at the moment, and a departure from past things.”
The title of the show is named after an excerpt from James Joyce’s’ ‘The Dubliners’ (1914), selected by Hawser, perhaps as a way of drawing attention to how grasping human relationships are important in understanding her sculptural pieces. The excerpt mulls over the word ‘Araby’, a place where a bazaar takes place and in which the protagonist wishes his love to join him. The word’s totemic, almost enchanting qualities hypnotise and absorb the reader in his wandering thought patterns.
Walking through the gallery with Hawser, the artist described the work physically, using arm gestures and mime-like actions to describe the modernist shapes and voids to make me better understand the structures, which were comprised partly of wood, part metal, and sprayed with paint here and there.
She described how they were almost accidental shapes. “I worked the pieces up from a maquette. I imagine a tight interior space. Originally I intended to use a drape or a screen to evoke a rising flood or water level – yet I wanted it to stay contained within the shape of the piece.”
The metal structure of the first creamy white piece atop a cylindrical plinth does indeed read like a building – with wooden elements and routed lines, which evoke sedimentary layers.
“Concrete structures that are quite reduced and still suggest chambers. The pieces have evolved a lot since I first thought about them. Internal volumes can be contained by this box like structure.”
She goes on to explain to me how another work has evolved to more human shapes and signifiers “I have made this place before with silhouettes. It meant the place was immediately pictoral, and evokes the shape of a leg or an arm. I wanted it to have a tight logic – a recessed curve is something more than a body part.” The figurative element of the work reveals itself in Hawsers screenprint of lesbian wrestlers.
“The reason I started working with the figure, was because people described them as characters almost. I thought, ‘horror!’ But then I realised, if there was a latent anthropomorphism within them, I have to get it out there and make it explicit. My mother is an abstract painter and I grew up with a staple meal of abstraction. I guess I never felt that comfortable with using the figure – but I thought it could be really useful to me. It’s always considered to be incredibly reductive – people assume that because there are 2 figures they must be a couple. I enjoy that reduction and presumption. It might be more complex, but hopefully they have obvious signs and patterns within them – revealing a couple or a profile of a figure. As soon as you put a curve into a sculpture it could immediately be a bum or something.”
Graffiti is also an important influence on Hawser’s practice. The sense of movement helps to give the pieces colour but also curvatious lines and flowing rhythm. “I guess I was always looking for a way to make a regular gesture. Graffiti is seen all the time but the format is very regular. It has such vitality.”
For the show, the artists are linked through the selection of texts, which are available on a handout as you enter the space. Andrew Palmer commented: “Somehow the texts both complimented each other well. We both wanted to contribute a text each. I chose a text by Barthes, a fragment called 'The Unknowable’ (1978) from ‘A Lover’s Discourse’ because it could be interpreted outside the romantic love between two people. It could be read alternatively about the maker of an object and how that relationship builds over time. The more that relationship grows the less one knows. There is an intractable relationship of exchanges, a mutual dialogue. It could also be interpreted as a viewer’s relationship with an artwork. If that has a resonance then that could be ongoing. If it exists in this way, then they enter the condition of a memory. Artwork often comes back to me in memories. Their significance can depend on how well they take hold.”
I discussed with Palmer becoming used to an artwork if one lives with items over time, and I pointed out there is a domestic scale and language to his paintings, which are blocks of walnut upon a small shelf – painted and treated with oil on an acrylic gesso base. The approximate A3 size has a portable domestic scale to them. The human scale of a head or a bathroom mirror.
“The decision to put them on shelves was in response to their physical nature as objects. Like a book there was this possibility that you might hold the work in your hand, this intimate one to one situation could be emphasised. An intimacy that larger pieces don’t necessarily have.”
The works are tactile looking and soft . “The nature of personally discovering something occurs through a certain tactile engagement.”
There is an element of collography or collage to the works. “In the past there has always been an element of layering – I have made pieces where I paint in between layers of varnish. For whatever reason, the piece might go wrong and it might get to the point where I have then excavated the surface to get back to a previous surfaces. I have literally dug into pieces. It really was a bit like archaeology.”
The curved canvas, entitled ‘Cosmic Fall’, is suspended from large ropes and Palmer describes it using the language of a painter:
“The genesis of the work evolved over a long time. I had an ambition to make something of larger scale. A kind of night sky. I wanted to make a work where light came through.
I had in mind works by Lucio Fontana, the paintings that are pierced rather than slashed. These holes penetrate into the physical structure have an altered dimensional quality that could be interpreted cosmologically.”
Palmer also evokes elements of colour field paintings in this show; the same could be said of Impressionist elements or Romantic leanings – I could have been looking at a pinky Olitski or even a blushing, blazing Turner.
“Over the course of about a year in which started thinking about a particular exhibition I was working towards. I wanted to make an exhibition where the paintings weren’t just pictures on the gallery wall. I wanted to intensify the experience. Maybe I started to conceive this large-scale work as a protective barrier or inner chamber.
I spent some time at a collection in Germany. Here purpose built pavilions housed works within a landscaped garden. The work existed in an altered space that wasn’t a standardised institution. The lack of signage, interpretation or guards, allowed the art work to breathe and exist on their terms.”
This is a great way to sum up the show at Moot – things exist on their own terms and definitely breathe. Don’t miss your last chance to see this excellent exhibition.
Araby finishes on 11th October.
