Fair Isle: take one
Taking its name from a traditional knitting technique used to create patterns with multiple colours, the works in Fair Isle form a tapestry of conversations around fluidity and structure.
Bettina Bruder’s Diagramatic Entanglements is an ensemble of elastic bands stretched to their limits and connected to each other and the corners of the building. The work gently directs viewers to draw their gaze to the periphery of the artwork and on to the structure of the building. The audience is encouraged to touch, pull and play with the bands causing them to bob, shudder and bounce. The viewer induced movement and mutation of the work makes us ponder the moments of fluidity and spontaneity that can occur within a fixed structure.
Fiona Davies’ Memorial/One shift November 30 presents a field of red crosses embroidered with buttons onto kitchen strainers and is coupled with Blood on silk: surgery – a woven stream of red ribbon. The latter is reminiscent of brick work or DNA strands, depending on whether your focus is drawn to the wall on which Blood on silk rests or its relationship to the accompanying work. Together the works are a prelude to a sense of medical emergency with a contingency plan already set.
Helen L Sturgess’ Another Life is quite literally a drawing with paper. High quality drawing paper cascades from the ceiling in a graceful crumple and the work hovers in a state of contemplation. What form have we just missed? What will evolve next?
In Rose Ann Mcgreevy’s work a sculptural cluster of wooden panels and pegs is arranged on the floor and interrupts our movement through the exhibition space. On opening night it was an olfactory as well as visual experience. The delicious aroma of newly assembled building materials calling to mind the very process that was involved in constructing the work. Knowing Fair Isle is only in its first of five incarnations this work seems a perfect entry point into ideas and forms to re-explore and build upon in the coming weeks.
Fiona Kemp’s selection of digital images make reference to water conservation in the Lockyer Valley. In one image a deep red gush of colour bursts forth from a sprinkler, in the other an assembly of water sprinklers are captured ‘at attention’ calling forth ideas about defence and weaponry. In humanising the simple technology at the heart of a water supply system the work has an almost visceral effect as it mimics the primal anxiety which comes from a threat to a precious, all-encompassing resource.
Alan Rose’s two panel light installation is a soft, gentle explosion of colour. The seamless transition from hue to hue in arrangements of angulated spheres across stark black boards is so subtle and sublime that it is more than dream-like, but meditative or hallucinatory.
At the heart of all these works is a curated conversation about states of transition and in each form we get the sense that we are merely looking at one point in the life-span of an object or idea. As viewers we have the responsibly to be imaginative and contemplative in order to create ideas about the past and future based on these momentarily fixed states that form a connection between what is and what will be.
Amy Prcevich
Alexander Vine - photostream of Fair Isle 1 opening
Lean Richards - alt media
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| Bettina Bruder |
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| right: Fiona Davies |
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| Fiona Davies |
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| Luke (left) and Alan Rose (right) |
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| mid: Helen L Sturgess |
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| Rose Ann McGreevy |
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| Fiona Kemp |