Visual Art
"h. I I ’r. ~ V_ O ‘7
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SCULPTURE
KARLA BLACK MICK PETER, MICHAEL STUMPF - leé n MATTERS
CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 29 Oct
Glasgow-based artists Karla Black, Mick Peter and Michael Stumpf walk the philosophical tightrope between the subject/object divide, where every action and thought unsettles the foundations of Being and Non-being - the ground under their feet. Artists have examined the separation between self and other since
art freed itself from the bonds of magic and its fetishes.
’Who am l?’ and ‘what is that?’ we ask, and art breeds in the fertile gaps between each postulate.
All three artists in Like It Matters utilise everyday materials to create their work, which helps make the familiar unfamiliar. The resultant sculptures generate stuttering and unsettling narratives that pull you in and then abandon you to irresolution — there doesn’t need to be an ending, happy or otherwise, in art. In the rush to become a ‘healthy’ subject, familiar strategies are employed where the self (you or the artist) tries to differentiate itself from others. Objects that become abject thwart the easy separation, becoming
90 THE LIST '2? Sep () ()( t 200‘)
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PAIN r we KIM FISHER
The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Fri 30 Sep 0..
At irrst glance. Krrn l rsher rnakes parntrngs rn thrall to Modernrsrn. Here. after all. are car‘rvases delineated hy precrse geornetrrc ior'rns. Sharp. ilat irelds oi colour are everywhere Look agarn. and i‘rsher seerrrs to have one eye closed rn a Wrnk t s she scans the art hrstory hooks. But while thrs allred awareness oi sell and history rs hardly an uniarnrlrar srght at the Modern institute. l-rsher seems to rnuody the waters more than her fellow travellers Her use oi colour and her adherence to iorrnalrsrn and ahstractron hrrng i‘rsher close to herng a hard edge painter, yet the edges oi her canvases are torn irorn their irarnes. striilyr unfurled. Wliil sorne parnted over as rt the reverse oi the canvas contains an unseen afterthought to the rnarn event irsher. too. has a near antr Modernrst iascrnatron with glrt/ and glamour Many oi the parntrngs here draw on the arrhrushed appr’oxrrnations oi glrrrtrng rnotes oi light iound rn 198th advertrsrng rnaterrals. In Study l or (,‘zernstone (Huonte 2)". i rsher' iloats a hauhle agarnst her planes oi colour. .‘rhrte ‘/rrcon' explodes the internal reilectrons of a cut stone i luorrte. rt should he noted. rs a common. gaudy
nightmarish, uncanny automatons stuck somewhere between life and death when they turn to look at you. Anthropomorphisation is a cliched and slightly passe way into this theoretical quagmire, but none of the artists take this easy route.
Karla Black’s previous work has been concerned with making as performance, the debris becoming almost accidental art objects. Materials that are regarded as unimportant become something through being worked (flour, for example) and things that are thrown away come back to haunt us, such as old clothes and half used toiletries. Mick Peter’s work also examines the quotidian but most of the work seems to come from some latent ‘oikomania’ (fear of the home). Everything becomes weird and unusable - sinks are damned and cassettes suffer from gigantism. Peter’s work relates to the Sherry or Shrigley brand of humour but in this context something darker is likely to emerge. Even in the broad light of day or bathed in the warm electric light of the CCA, Michael Stumpf should conjure an icy shiver. Fairytales and indigo denim wrap around abstract forms leaving everything to the spooked
rnrneral: /rrcon rs the drarnorad's poor
In parntrng Jewels all the works shown here are narned alter sparkly rocks irsher has. perhaps, ‘ound the
rdeal iorrn to told Pop rnto Modernism. lrke the referee at an unliker ooxrng rnatch wrth Greenherg :n the hint- corner, Warhol Ill the red.
(Jack Mottrarnr
imagination. (Alexander Kennedy)
Review
PAIN i INC}
//7
Atticsalt, Edinburgh, until Sat 24 Sep .0.
ll rnust he testament to the hrgh standard oi talent cornrng out oi Scotland's art colleges that th s show was orrgrnally hrlled as (30. yet had to he renarned Wrth the addrtron oi another just graduated artist to the told. It's no hrg deal. however: everyone Wliil work on display possesses just the rrght spark oi orrgrnalrty and technical ahrlrty to he worthy oi Inclusion rn such a show.
Ihe prck oi the hunch would have to he
(Jalurn Niven. whose 'Knossos l' and ‘Knossos
I ' hlend srrnple hut eiiectrvely hlurred hrushstrokes rnto srnrster and suggestrve shapes. In truth there's not much going on hlocks oi hurnt reds stand agarnst dark and equally lorrnless patches of hlack yet rt's the
suhtle rntrnratrorr oi drrnly Irt interior space which allows the rrnagrnatror‘ to m wk on the pieces
Helen Catherine l ongstati's rnk drawings are equally ahstr’act. yet tor altogether d'lterent reasons. Here the lines are clear and tlerrned. yet her apparently horned sketching oi yanat appear to he Irvrng roorns and oiirr:e spares give a hyper real rrnpressron ller styli- Incorporates much more than rs actually gorng on iii the space, ornrttrng sorne detarls and redraWrng others over and over allowing tor a hrrllrantly hallucinatory eiiecl.
Where these are stand outs, Becky Bolton's hrhlrcal and sexually lorthrrght 'ivirss Master. Hosernary llogarth's weird, proportionally distorted portrarts (prctured). and l leanor Heeves' rnasteriully parnted (although perhaps more rdyllrcally conirnercral) 'Huthre's Beach llut' srt corniortath arnrdst a show \Viiltfl‘r provrdes a deserved platiorrn tor seyen prornrsrrrg new artists (l)avrd l’ollor'k)