Sculptural work by James McLardy (foreground) and twin wall works by Jonathon Gowing
MIXED MEDIA LAST CHANCE TO TURN AROUND Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 14 Aug 0...
Themed loosely around the gaps between the fake and the real, the latest group outing at the Intermedia is full of wonderful work, much of it as slippery as the show’s shaky concept. Jonathon Gowing’s Where I End and You Begin stands out, a pair of painterly sculptures (or sculptural paintings) with oval wall-mounted vitrines preserving layered shards that hint at representation. The same goes for Paul Embleton’s drum skins. Adorned with slivers of plastic and quick daubs of gluey paint, the small shapes call to mind something- or-other. They are, it turns out, copies of familiar images digitally reworked until only a hint of their essence remains. Marcus Mitchell’s Desert Diorama, meanwhile, is a collection of sand-bound cacti with
MIXED MEDIA MARTIN MCINALLY: A MEASURE OF LIFE
Pentagon Centre, Glasgow, until Fri 27 Aug 000
Emptiness and fullness; the particular and the universal; the aQueous and the concrete - these enormous themes define the edges of Martin Mclnally‘s recent exhibition A Measwe of Life. His drawings, prints and paintings embody the flotsam of Western civilisation washed up on the beaches and planes of North Africa. Egypt acts as Mclnally's cross roads and the cruCible for his ideas (where many of these works were
painted needles; another poke in the eye of the everyday. Blue Tit treads similar ground, the titular bird killed stone dead, a dribble of blood seeping out. We’re back to fun with juxtaposition with Calum Stirling, who shows a video of a rather inept potter, throwing clay on an old turntable, pitching hi-tech consumerism against lo-tech creation. Conversely, his other piece here is a bold graphic insignia, only it’s made out of carrier bags from Lidl.
Last, James McLardy’s awkward, angular sculpture pits wood against wood, with slick MDF interlocked with grainy lumber, while his delicate drawing sees knotty twigs beside loops of twine. More obliquely, a video work slowly tracks through museum storage space, breathing life into artefacts left behind. This is a good group show then, one in which artists who work differently work well together. (Jack Mottram)
let religious and (LLlliLll'dl shifts resonate. This work explores a wide range of SlejeCl matter: Jungian arcnetypes. sectarianisrn, icons and iconoclasrn. term and forinlessness — a very drifrCult task. But. when the sometimes over- reaching artist's explanation is passed over. man, of the simpler works float to the Surface of the collection iwhich is really a Illifll-r8ll()SD€Cll‘.’e' with ease. leaving lesser. leaden pieces floundering. Is there an intentional paradox embodied in this exhibition? The rhetoric and the sheer amount of works contradict the simpliCity of the images. but The Pentagon is a difficult space to
Emission
producedl. subtly permeating the architects tracing paper and canvases. The human figure is reduced from more or less naturalistic swimming Or drowning men in his blue monotone paintings. to groups of printed. spiralling motifs forming lace-like patterns on
32 rue usr i2-i 9 Aug 2004
canvas ilslamic Synchronised swrmmers’?l. befOre being petrified into rows of male sarcophagi in his papyrus- crisp pen tracings. Mclnally brings the 'SSueS of human form as icon 'back home“ the was born in GlaSQOV.’l. where the Viewer can choose whether or not to
fill — maybe it shOuld be left half-empty. Or maybe A Measure of Life. like every life. Just needs editing slightly to keep Our attention. That said. the space is handled well, and the works line the walls like Statioris c‘ the Cross. iAlexanoer Kenned,
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MIXED SHOW
TERRA NOVA ll
Glasgow School of Art, until Fri 10 Sep .0.
Degree shows are alwaxs hard to get a handle on, what with the sheer olurne of work on show. Terra Nata ll, curated b\ the School of Art and The List, offers a chance for \isitors to take a considered look at the best of the recent graduates. In the Mackintosh Gallery Aoite Melx’irn's (torner installation stands out. With thousands of rawl plugs pushed into panels, MrtKirn hints at mapping, or data visualisation, leavrng the Viewer to guess at the purpose behind this burst of llllllll(‘.()l0lllt}(l nodes. louise Rawlev's Boundaries series. meanwhile, sees transistors and chips iun alongside beetles. inuddling lines between organic matter and the detritus of technology In between these two_ there's a heck of a lot of landscape. from Lee Muir's (tool study in pink and grey to OliVia Gurther's celebratory strips of iiair’it—saturated paper.
Vitruvius Britannica by Alistair Frost
In Studio 40. Ulf Holbrook's jerky, angled monoliths stand up to a long look. Roughly finished. with arts and crafts patterns pressed onto their surface. Holbrook might be making an architectural maquette for a future City, or uncovering long lost standing stones. Billy Teasdale's sculptures couldn't be more different — a narcissitic pig-creature admires his pretty dress in a mirror, while behind him two lumpen bags. all claw and anus. are on the hunt for something unspeakable. If there‘s a downside to Terra Nova //, it's the emphasis on flat things that hang on walls, when the strongest works in the full show were three-dimensional things installed in spaces. That aside, it's a valuable chance to re- evaluate the first steps of the strongest students and. perhaps, to snap up a piece by a future star. (Jack Mottram)