Visual Art
bruit/1; W [)i/- MAT COLLISHAW Inverleith House until 13 Mar 2005 0..”
Embedded within the Botanical Gardens artist Mat Collishaw has created a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland' experience; a hotch-potch of fairytale props gathered together with a mixture of curiosity and obsessive engagement with beauty. Films are reflected through and against looking-glasses, mirrors and crystal balls, with an almost childlike inquisitiveness and splendour.
It's hard to believe that a show like this would have such an impact outside Inverleith House; the architecture of this 18th century building is integral to the feeling of going on some kind of adventure, where the viewer is encouraged to creep up the stairs or open creaking doors into its adjoining rooms. This is not an open plan exhibition but rather a quest — a series of discoveries to be made in the mysterious dim-lit interiors.
Even the environment of the Botanical Gardens and the journey through it to arrive at the gallery seem perfectly matched to Collishaw's work, where the picturesque nature of the gardens is echoed, reflected and distorted inside the house: viewers are invited to gaze into plastic lily-ponds where videos of prostitutes pacing the streets are looped in sequence, lusty hyper-real digital prints of roses on fire adorn the walls or else are shown in putrescent decay.
The juxtaposition of all these images is just as stimulating as the combination of media, and the arrangement of the work forces the viewer to move around the work rather than the work catering for the comfort of its audience. Collishaw also redresses the nature of digital projection which, although sometimes seeming quite a dry or inaccessible medium, has recently become very diverse. His exhibition not only reflects this shift but widens the possibility for further experimentation, while silencing any film purists.
Clearly, the lingering shadow of being part of the notorious (once) Young British Artists set doesn’t hang heavy over Collishaw, and within such a rich and exuberant fantasy land it seems hardly the point when the work itself is so beautifully provocative. (Isla Leaver-Yap)
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Arches. Glasgow, Fri 4 Feb-Sat 12 Mar
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terrrtort. work through new ideas and present works rn progress. Douglas Morland's rnstallatron of painting and seulpture rs, howexer. fully formed. sr_,t‘esr.'r- and ttornpellrng. as rt he planned the sort of loose. preparaton; .vork usuaifi seer rn th s spat‘e. on|\, to trnd hrrnselt ‘.'.'llll a strong; show on hrs hands.
Cornerselx'. rt rs the exhrhrtror‘.‘s eurrous. terrtatr‘v.e nature that makes rt more than a sketch or work rn progress. Morland has drawn on two sources to make thrs work: psyehrt: rnedrunrshrp. and the life of Leon Therernrn, Russran urxents' and rnstrurnent»rnaker A wreath of paper roses reads 'Ter‘nren Ne Mret'. a palrndrorne whreh translates as 'Therernrn Does Not Dre'. a nod to the Therernrr: feedback loop. a hrnt t tat rrnrnortalrtt may he granted ht. hrstorx. and a srtr‘;rltt- Irnk to the first prrnerple ot rnedrurnshrp - that death rs not t'rnal.
The three parntrngs here tease too — ‘Ther'ernrn‘ shows a rntrs.tt:an's lr":;--' porntrng hemenwards. 'Seanee' has hands teasmg out a strand of e<‘t<:t>‘.r:;"‘ r: Morland eornparrng the skilled taker, ot the medrurn to the gestural sontr: Therernrn's rnx'entron’? Nothrng here rs explrcrt. 'Ourra' rs harder strl to rea r — thw- tables srt. srlver parnt traerng therr surtaee grarn. an assembly that. lrfted Merland's grit fer turnrng a collectron of objects rnto a frzzrng. cracklrng. 'r. no whole. turns out to be a key to understandrng the rest of the work on siren. Morland's disparate themes connect rn the end. through hrs tit-3rnorrst'at-ztri that the Therenrrn's magical sOund. and the false rnagrc o" rnedrurns. share son‘et":ng
Wrth hrs own practice — that unQuantrtrable sornethrng that turns thrncrs r: a
rnto art that Ines on rn the rnrnd of the wetter. It‘s almost spooky. IJa k tt‘rtxtr'an:
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