Visual Art I
The dark fold
‘YOU ARE IN THE PAINTING'
Dark Light (detail)
lsla Leaver-Yap speaks to Alison Watt about her new exhibition at the Ingleby Gallery, where light is turned into darkness.
f the substance of all painting is light. then artist
Alison Watt has got a dark sense of humour.
Perhaps best known for her luminous oil paintings of shaper white calico fabrics and creamy brocade drapes. Watt has quietly spent two years creating her alter-ego installation. 'l)ark Light‘.
Instantly incongruous to the lngleby's Georgian style. the self-contained work stands ominously in the twilit gallery with minimalist finesse — a dull. gleaming aluminium cube that intimates some industrial purpose. A discrete handle on one side reveals a double-vaulted door that leads into the darkened interior. Then. swinging both doors shut. the painted panels hung on the inside walls of the cube gradually surface out of the gloom.
lior Watt the pleasure of the work is in the detail. ‘The sound the door makes when it closes behind you is like someone exhaling.‘ she explains. In the dark. there really is a creeping sense of presence and claustrophobia. Perhaps such sharp aesthetic particulars run the risk of turning the work into a gimmicky spectacle. But the experience is helplessly entertaining.
Watt‘s walk-in immersion painting points to a surprisingly traditionalist attitude towards the way one should see art. The length of time people generally spend on a single artwork in a museum has been calculated at roughly two seconds. With ‘l)ark Light‘. on the other hand. the artist has imposed a minimum viewing length of l()~l5 minutes. This meditative act of looking — maybe better described as ‘waiting’ — echoes the artist‘s labour intensive
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process. So. while most painting usually assumes an automatic ability to be seen. Watt has forcibly transformed it into a time-based medium. where the work has to arrive. And. when it does. you are engulfed.
By the time your eyes adjust to the shadows. the true cadences of Watt‘s painting technique are unmistakable. ‘Your entire vision is filled with the image.‘ she says. ‘You are in the painting.’ The murky viewing conditions emphasise the suppleness and rhythm of Watt‘s technique. and lend an unexpected gentleness to a work that has been painted onto aluminium sheets rather than canvas. ‘Strangely. with the suite of prints which were made to compliment the piece. I experienced the opposite of this.‘ says Watt. referring to the works on paper that hang in the brilliantly lit back gallery. "The softness of the paper seemed to be transformed into something oddly metallic by the image.‘
That Watt has assuredly moved her painting towards installation is a welcome change. l-ler two—year residency at the National Gallery in London may result in yet more interesting excursions away from traditional canvas painting. But. while ‘Dark Light’ is an enticing. brooding work. there is a sense in which the final revelation of ‘seeing‘ the work merely reveals the artist‘s ‘trick‘. And the exposure of such magic arguany undermines the fascination of a work that is better half—seen. haIf—understood.
Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu 5 Apr 000
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THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
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=l< Juergen Teller - Awailable The first exhibition in Scotland by the celebrated German-born photographer who helped to change the face of fashion photography in the 908 through work for magazines such as i0 and The Face. Awai/able features new and recent colour photographs selected by the artist. See review, page 89. inver/eith House, Edinburgh, until Sun 75 Apr.
=l< Alison Watt - Dark Light An installation of new paintings by the Scottish artist. Watt has been working as artist in residence at the National Gallery or London, returning to the Ingleby Gallery with a construction that is created out of her paintings of dark folds of material. See opposite. lngleby Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu 5 Apr
is Nick Crowe - Commemorative Glass An exhibition of new and recent works exploring memory, related to major themes such as war, death, and technology. Crowe uses the ephemeral and fragile characteristics and associations of glass to create solid but transparent sculptural forms. See review, page 89. CCA, Glasgow, until Sat 37 Mar. =i< Trenton Doyle Hancock - The Wayward Thinker
A large, sprawling installation of drawings, paintings and sculptures continuing Hancock’s mythical and autobiographical narrative journey, exploring the eternal battle between good and evil (the Mounds and the Vegans). The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 8 Apr.
95¢ Le Femme de Nulle Part Artist Lucy Skaer curates an exhibition of work by friends and fellow collaborators Anita Di Bianco, Sophie Macpherson and Rosalind Nashishibi. The works on show examine how history is manufactured and how it can therefore be altered. See interview. page 91. Doggen‘isher, Edinburgh, until Sat 28 Apr.