What the heck - if I'm hoping to be a bit more 'strategic' in my thinking, and to take more advantage of potentially beneficial stuff whenever it arises - then why not actually just put this up on here? Milking it? - I should cocoa...
Art Review: Visions of a
Free-Floating Island at Surface Gallery
3 October 18
words: Adrian Shaw
This cracking exhibition at SurfaceGallery showcased new work from Hugh Marwood, Andrew Smith and Shaun Morris;
their art reflecting many of the ideological and psychological challenges
facing the UK post-Brexit. Our writer Adrian Shaw popped in to have a look and
tell us all abaht it...
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| Hugh Marwood, 'Fridge 1' (Photo: Adrian Shaw) |
‘There are conversations going on between
the artworks’ raising fresh points which we become aware of...’ (Artists’ Talk
comment, Hugh Marwood, et al)
This exhibition is the collective view of the
three artists exhibiting their latest work at this really stimulating and
fresh-looking show, which examines the condition of our post-Brexit island. The
trio of artists have been working together since 2012 and, although there are
differences in their individual approaches, they have a lot in common as
artists, and have a cohesiveness in the presentation of individual viewpoints
and experiences.
This was a very British show; it
personally appealed to me as an artist looking at both inner and outer spaces.
The personal and political were allowed space and opportunity to speak and
exchange their views. The post-Brexit negativity that we see in our daily
lives, the personal fury in public debates between the two sides of the nation
and the negativity against wider ideals does, at least, have the benefit of
producing great art such as the works presented in this gallery. Although the
politics were Left-leaning, the efforts of all three artists also spoke of
working-out the personal and psychological perspectives of wider political
experiences and well-being, which one feels is increasingly needful today.
After a thorough examination of the work
on show, we, the punters, were privileged on the penultimate Saturday
afternoon, to hear the artists talk and partake in discussions on ideas
indicated, and added to, on our exposure to their efforts.
The first artist, Hugh Marwood, had a
downstairs, 2-D wall-based exhibition known as the ‘Flagging’ series where he
takes the Union Flag as a base, and then adds a montage-collagist overlying
finish involving text and colourful, seemingly random mark-making. One thinks
of Jasper Johns’ work here and a kind of “post-postmodern” art. Upstairs,
Marwood’s work was a mixture of two and three dimensional art – with abandoned
fridge doors being the substrates for a montage of colourful plastic-lettered
text. His ‘Childish Things’ series used found plastic toys, kiddy vehicles,
cars, scooters, and a rocking-horse mounted on empty cardboard boxes; the boxes
themselves utilised in his ‘Sentinel’ series alongside.
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| Andrew Smith, 'Standard' (Photo: Adrian Shaw) |
His other body of work, ‘The Assembly’
series, utilised found cardboard boxes. On these, 3-D works were scattered on
small, bullet-like, empty silver gas propellant canisters. The abandoned
toy-cars then hinted at lives of promise and youth misspent into empty
adulthood. The Talking Heads song ‘Road to Nowhere’ came to mind here. This
sense of emptying-out and abandonment was very evident, including from the
works by the other two members of the trio.
Shaun Morris, the second artist, paints
with a Zurbaran-inspired loose brushwork to create haunting, darkly shaded oil
paintings. Much of his exhibition consisted of abandoned vehicles, many of
which are vans - to hold lurking police or criminals, or even terrorists,
perhaps. He is also drawn to images of consumerist waste-dumping in the street,
with boxes and other ‘containers’ emptied and abandoned. His paintings make a
major contribution to the show: images are often viewed at strange angles,
imbued with significant critical meaning, depicting the sheer absurdity of
consumerism.
The absurd was much-exemplified by all three
artists, but especially Andrew Smith who explores the therapeutic or
psychoanalytic perspective. Downstairs, the eclectic nature of his work
included assemblages about the dis-empowered and emasculated male - with
‘stand-in’ objects such as broken electronic organ keyboard, pink giant
stockings, a plastic ‘phallus’ and pink knickers with a mournful puppy pattern
and a beheaded ‘King Penguin’. His work was very varied, and included coloured
pencil-drawn and acrylic brick wall where both ‘controlling balance’ and
‘unbalance’ mental-states were hinted at. He also indicated the wandering
colonial with a book cover: ‘Letters from China’. This artist was also the
source of the artwork Visions of a Free-Floating Island’, which gave its name
to the Exhibition.
Whether
it be through techniques or themes, the artworks were in conversation or in
exchange of ideas with one another. The art and the artists themselves depicted
cohesiveness and co-operation in the face of national disunity.
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