Visual Art
SCUI PTUREV’INSTAI l ATION CLAIRE BARCLAY Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, Fri 5—Sat 17 Aug
Claire Barclay deals in duality and juxtaposition, clashing and cleaving. This is immediately apparent in her use of materials — exquisitely turned wood is laid alongside shiny nylon; fur and feathers look askance at rubber and plastic. spikes of aluminium echo animal horn.
These materials. which Barclay fair revels in. are arranged and assembled so as to emphasise, or at least point out. the difference between man made substances and those that are harvested
This first. apparently basic Opposition between culture and nature sets up further coi'itradit'2tions. l ler work hovers somewhere between the calm and the uneasy and her constructions are often delicately balanced, threatening to topple. The pieces. too. set up a tension between sculptuie and installation. with assemblies that at first appear self- contained revealing themselves to be conjoined. a tendency matched with a keen awareness of space.
Barclay is interested in making the individual universal. and vice versa -— the arrangements she makes are instantly evocative little routes into personal memoiy, but. curious forms that they are. can erin speak of general impressions and shared reniembrances.
As her second show at Doggerfisher approacf'ies. Barclay remains tight- lipped when it comes to the specifics of her new work. but it seems safe to say that it will form another pact between awkwardness and comfort. real and fake, true and false.
(.Jack Mottrain)
Fll M DARIA MARTIN Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 6 Aug—Sat 24 Sep
Before the empty tabernacle at the core of self. Daria Martin stages her revelatory masque. The San Franciscan born and tendon-based artist expands the themes of her previous film ‘Closeup Galleiy', 2003, which helped earn her a 200:”) Beck's Futures nomination. Martin demonstrates that there is nothing beyond artifice. that 'Man and Mask' (the name of the film commissioned by the Collective) are one and the same. The slippery, illusory surface of art and life melt into the silver
screen before us.
In “Part l' we see 16mm film being processed and clay being worked. Both materials are combined through filmic magic; the alchemical baths where clay is wetted and film is rinsed spout forth a new being in 'Part II‘ - an actor, a self. ‘Under this mask another mask. I shall never finish stripping away all these taces.’ wrote Claude Cahun, long before multiple personalities were fashionable. Martin continues the unstoppable outpouring of shuddering selves by having her actor remove and don masks that convey emotions that jar with the impassive visage
behind the false faces.
In her second film ‘Birds'. 2001. the veice of Martin as director peppers the soundtrack. controlling the performance with shouts of ‘Cut!' Women sit and preen like escapees from one of Schlemmer's Bauhaus ballets, waiting in the wings for aesthetic motivation. The ‘birds' are resplendent in mating plumage ‘ visors and thick make up -— but the white tights and leotaids turn their lithe young frames into sexless bodies without organs. (Alexander Kennedy)
l'llllllb‘ PAULA REGO Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 6 Aug—Sat 24 Sep
Paula Rego was born in Portugal in 1935. At that time the country was in the grip of a dictatorship and was highly repressive, but as a child she was told fairy stories which bedded deep into her imaginative stores. At 18 she was sent to Britain to complete her education and attended the Slade School of Art. Though she may be better known for her painting — figurative works, beautifully crafted with dark, honest undertones - Rego is also a consummate printmaker.
She discovered her enjoyment of the medium while at the Slade and it has continued to be a source of release and joy for her over the last 50 years. Its quickness and smallness of scale have been a saving grace at times of
70 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE A l 1 Aug Qt it i‘)
Pendle Witches
painter’s block, or after a particularly heavy period of working. This show brings together works that have never been seen together before. There is a series of prints which use nursery rhymes as their subject - cows jumping over the moon, black sheep and lost lambs; pictures from Peter Pan and Jane Eyre; images inspired by Blake Morrison’s Pendle Witches and a set of prints born out of anger at the lethargic response to a 1998 referendum in Portugal on the legalisation of abortion. Women lie huddled in pain and Rego’s pity and disgust at the vote’s low turn-out, and consequent ‘No', are etched in every line.
Rego’s images tell stories — they tap into your unconscious and draw you into worlds far away but close to the heart and forgotten memory. This is a treat indeed. (Ruth Hedges)