Visual Art
PREVIEW PAINTING SARAH WAKEFORD: LIGHT, AIR AND SPACE WASPS Studios, Edinburgh, Sat 4 & Sun 5 Oct
‘I see myself as a decorative artist,’ says Sarah Wakeford, “rather than one who wants to make a big political statement or anything like that. I paint things which I find attractive.’ It seems somewhat ironic that this is Wakeford’s view because her own landscape art - which will be on show for the duration of this weekend at WASPS’ Dalry studios - is counterbalanced by her day job in community art projects.
Undertaking printmaking residencies at a psychiatric unit in Bristol, as Wakeford has done, might not lie at the more fashionable end of the art world’s spectrum, but it’s arguably a more socially useful deployment for an artist than just about any other.
‘Working in situations like this is a challenge for me as a person and as an artist,’ she says. ‘You’re working with people who are very unhappy in some cases, so it’s as much a social thing as it is an artistic endeavour. You’re trying to build confidence and make people more willing to talk about their ideas.’
It’s no wonder then that Wakeford sees a definite split between this work and the art she makes entirely on her own terms. Although the Edinburgh College of Art graduate enjoys working in tandem with others during community projects, her usual practice is a solitary studio-based one. She creates landscape images in ink and oil, which are sourced from photographs of locations she has visited. The paintings that will be shown here are of Iceland, and Wakeford is currently finishing off a series of between 15 and 20 of them.
‘I’ve always been interested in landscapes and seascapes,’ Wakeford says, ‘and Iceland seemed to me like the perfect place to see these. Since I came back I’ve been abstracting an atmosphere of the place in a palette of blues and whites, by which I mean that I’m using the shapes in the landscape as motifs, not making straight photorealist copies of the images I already have. Artistic licence, I think they call it! What’s important to me, though, is the sense of place, and recapturing what it felt like to be in the location at that time.’ (David Pollock)
REVlEW SOUND INSTALLATION KJELI. BJORGEENANIPAUL SHARITS em Dundee Contemporary Arts, until Sun 12 Oct
Do not adjust your sets. The 15 TV monitors arranged every which way in 'Figment Light’, Norwegian auteur Kjell Bjorgeengen's series of flicker-based sound and light installations. developed primarily at New York's Experimental Television Center, may initially overpower the casual viewer like some on-the-blink version of The Twilight Zone, but the initial urge to recoil soon subsides into washes of chill-out zone sensonum.
With looped soundscapes generating the accompanying visuals. the intricate disparities between each piece move from amplified war-zone static and partially submerged ambience to Philipp Waschmann's ornate violin-scapes and a trouser- rattling dub sh'boom. ln ante-rooms beyond the black and white of the main space. languid pastorals contrast sharply with the sub-bass rattle-and-hum next door.
As a pop-eyed precursor to Kill Your Timid Notion. the DCA's almost annual weekend festival which explores the relationship between sound and vision. it's an indicator to how Bjorgeengen’s performance with Waschmann and Keith Rowe may pan out.
Similarly, Paul Sharits' ‘Epileptic Seizure Comparison' dates from 1976. and was seen in its purely cinematic form a couple of KYTN's ago. This installation version. however, was how Sharits originally showed this twin-screen 16mm loop of two men in the throes of convulsion played in a relatively confined space in which assorted noises are bounced around. The idea here too is to linger awhile and transcend the initial discomfort to enter a state of blissed-out satori. You get the idea alter a few minutes. but if you've the inclination to stick with both of these pieces, you may end up somewhere else entirely. (Neil Cooper)
“TH. LIST 2—16 Oct 2008
REVIEW SCULPTURE RICHARD HUGHES eeee Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 4 Oct
Richard Hughes makes some of the most repulsive sculptures around. and some of the most attractive. His subject matter is the sort of abandoned tat that would make most folk wrinkle their noses in disgust.
Hughes lavishes attention on these unprepossessing objects. making uncannily realistic sculptures of them. memorialising the usually ignored in precise fibreglass or resin casts. There's a sculpture of some scuffed. unfolded cardboard boxes. scorched by a discarded fag end. its tip still glowing. Across the room. a pair of trainers have gone to seed. rotting from within and sprouting tufts of grass. Up on the walls a sorry little collection of deflated balloons is tacked up. upside down, making it plain that they're solid objects. made not found. This is unpleasant. grubby stuff, but it is impossible to resist being drawn to it, if only to work out how on earth Hughes manages to achieve this near- perlect realism.
Outside on Robertson Street, in a lot awaiting redevelopment, Hughes has installed a monumental sculpture in bronze of a tree that has grown through the burned-out back of a Chair. Encountering perfect replicas of overlooked moments inside the gallery is one thing, but out here in its unnatural habitat. Hughes' tree transforms its surroundings. It's a cliche to say that good art changes the way we look at the world. but Hughes' really does — after a visit to this show. litter chucked into front gardens, decrepit furniture left out for the bin men and newspapers dropped in the street become things to examine. not things to ignore. (Jack Mottram)