SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION SALLY OSBORN: Illa Willy-Exists!“ Ol-l HA HIM Glasgow Sculpture Studio, Glasgow, until Sat 15 Sep .0000 The metaphoncal and actual preciousness of Sally Osbom's previous sculptural work has been cmshed under the onslaught of an expanding self-confidence in the work on show at Glasgow Sculpture Studios. It is overly simplistic to read a surer sense of self into larger and harder objects, but it's difficult not to see these wooden and metal pieces as a confident departure from the work Osborn made previously out of more friable materials: foil, paper towels and watercolour. These objects assert their presence rather than apologise for it. The work on show in the gallery presents itself straight on, with the viewer's position in the perspectival cone somewhere outside on the street, looking in the window. The space acts like a minimal stage set where a Beckettian play could unfold. Objects are either reduced to sketches of themselves (a stairway becomes a geometric line creeping up the back wall) or humorously tweaked flotsam and jetsam (a gas stove becomes a satellite dish and two plastic cups act like binoculars). Invisible eyes look through these cups (they appear to have been used for mixing paint or Cleaning a bmsh), returning the gaze from a surer, objective. abstract place beyond the realm of the viewer. Osborn's use of the outside space is even more succesle, with an acute sense of play emerging, but the viewer's (and artist's) wish to project a naive narrative at this fragmented scene detracts from the weight of the objects. (Alexander Kennedy)
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SCULPTURE. PRINTMAKING, PHOTOGRAPHY, INSTALLATION VOLUNTARY ACTION The Changing Room, Stirling, until Sat 8 Sep
It's now ten years since Stirling's small artist/volunteer-run space The Changing Room opened its doors. In that time it has provided a supportive platform for emerging and established talent from Scotland and beyond. The continuing success of this gallery is surely a cause for celebration, and the wide array of artwork from over 20 different artists in this anniversary show aims to highlight its lively, dynamic nature.
The work on show ranges from photography and printmaking to site specific sculpture. with particular highlights including a sound and painting installation by Glasgow-based artist David McNeil and quirky, site responsive soulptures by Bea Drysdale. A number of artists have also been commissioned to make work specifically for the show including a series of unusual and original limited edition T- shirts by Scottish artists with graphic, colourful styles including Rob Churm, David Galletly, Rue Five and Amy Marletta.
The more established Scottish artist Kate Davis has also been asked to create a children's-style activity book to accompany the show for ‘young at heart' visitors. As the title suggests, the space enjoys widespread support from volunteers. and, to reflect this Jenny Brownrigg, director of exhibitions at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design has provided an insightful essay to accompany the exhibition. Despite its off the beaten track location. The Changing Room remains a challenging and respected base for local and national artists. and this exhibition should hopefully raise its profile. (Rosie Lesso)
Visual Art
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BANDAGED HEADS
Sorcha Dallas. Glasgow, until Sat 22 Sep .0”
After a successful exhibition as part of a group show of work at Stirling‘s Changing Room, Clare Stephenson returns to Glasgow to continue her examination of performativity and the exaggerated poses that we adopt in our everyday lives. These new sculptures and accompanying prints act as demonstrations of philosophical arguments — theatrical poses that are mirrored and expressed in the figures she stages.
In the smaller gallery space, Stephenson has placed what look like bandaged heads against the walls, four oval shapes constructed from off-cuts — shards of cheap white laminate wood with tiny plywood fibres sticking through the gauze, like diminutive teeth. The intersecting triangular planes move from off-white to cream, creating an illusion of depth and a sense that the flat canvases have been wrapped. What do these comedic cartoons of swollen heads conceal? If the answer is nothing, and these works are existential expositions, then they demonstrate that there is ‘no doer behind the deed' as Nietszche would have it, no actor behind the mask. If these works are read as mirrors, then the act of covering them could refer to the ritual of veiling mirrors during the process of mourning. The Self is eternally absent. As a formalist experiment, the work could also be seen as the disfigurement, then the concealment of the figurative with the abstract.
These themes are expanded in the larger gallery next door, where the figurative returns as a towering monstrosity constructed out of collaged body parts, skirts and folds. Two large female figures (‘Miss Verily-Existent and Miss Quite-Transcendent’) created out of plywood covered in photocopies stand in camp mannequin poses, gesticulating in all directions. They demonstrate that the subject is only an illusion created through repeated actions (the multi-layered and repeated fans of black and white photocopies), falling in and out of inky darkness and creating a paper-thin surface that appears to be ‘real’. These figures reveal that Stephenson was originally trained as a sculptor, and that her philosophical enquiries and her sense of sculptural space continue to deepen. (Alexander Kennedy)
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