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| Jerwood Gallery |
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A Square of Ground
Paul Carter, Annabelle Dalby, Louisa Fairclough, James Ireland, Daniel Jackson, Bob Matthews, Sarah McFadyen, Obuabang, Matthew Smith.
Curated by Louise Trodden, Exhibition Co-ordinator, Jerwood Gallery.
Recalling the prospector’s dream A Square of Ground explores our ever-present desire to invest and imagine ourselves within a landscape. Working in photography, video, digital imaging and sculpture these 9 young UK-based artists propose an escape from the clutter of urban detritus to a safe heaven.
The search for the ideal, a place of quite introspection, depicts a generic style of landscape – the favourite subjects of the holiday snapshot and the picture postcards – wide-open panoramas, the wooden hut amid the trees, the outline of hills silhouetted against the sky and the mesmeric view out to sea. Indulging in these escapist propositions each vision is also imbued with a tinge of failure: glossy mirages that touch more often on the banal than the realms of the sublime.
Paul Carter asks for the audience’s willing complicity in the belief that a modest garden-shed kited-out with a CB radio, is a possible hot line to God.
Annabelle Dalby’s photographs of individuals at picturesque viewpoints around the English Coast have a seductive familiarity reminiscent of holyday snapshots from the 1960s.
Louisa Fairclough’s video projection from her impossible bicycle journey to the plains around the Aral Sea, presents a panoramic sweep of a never-ending horizon.
James Ireland’s household dioramas are constructed from banal everyday items whose reflection or shadows transform into picture postcards views.
Daniel Jackson’s serene computer simulation based on Wimbledon Golf Course follows the progress of a single ball to realise eighteen perfect holes in one.
Bob Matthews draws computer-generated scenes of intimate refuges nestling in luscious green forests and gardens, compiled from memory to form generic landscapes.
Sarah Mc Fadyen wades through the sea with two office chairs as stepping-stones, against the backdrop of the island of Orkney.
Obuabang’s wishing-well, a symbolic vessel for our hopes and dreams, delivers nothing except for each individual’s own reflection.
Matthew Smith copies the lettering “The End” from the closing sequenze of Sunday matinee films, transplanting the phrase to the sun-setting skyscapes above the National Parks in the North of England.
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