Dialogues
Hatchings - Karen Lyons and Rachel Maclean
An exhibition of new work supported by Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop featuring artists, Karen Lyons (Leeds) and Rachel Maclean (Glasgow).
The aim of Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop’s Dialogues programme is to support the production and presentation of new work, broadening the perception and understanding of contemporary sculpture practice. Through the juxtaposition of conflicting or complementary artworks, a catalyst is created to spark unexpected, innovative or new developments between the artists.
For Hatchings both artists have set out to weave a narrative of their own, using sculpture, installation and video work that embodies the metamorphic identity of the egg and its symbolic importance. On entering the main gallery space we are met by a |
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series of sculptured heads on plinths, arranged dynamically. Some with their faces planted and others staring at the ceiling, their elaborate headdresses mutate and transform through the internal experiences of their host. Flanking and cracking the boundaries of the heads are Rachel’s grotesque and visceral egg-like structures. A contemporary twist on those found in Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, they bristle with plastic, sweeties and shop bought Easter commodities. Sitting within the pillars, the visual outcome is a monstrous saccharine equivalent of Renaissance altarpieces.
The costumes incorporated in these sculptures are to be found in the video projection within the back gallery. Again Bosch is invoked as an imagined world is created featuring strange creatures that reference multiple narratives related to Easter kitsch and the contradictions of the egg. The aesthetic is of cheerfully grotesque ‘Disneyfication’ as a hyper-glowing virtual, transforming painting forces interaction while always withholding physical experience. This mad, crammed virtual world is made real however by Karen’s installation, where visceral but decorative forms and found objects emanate from a central head, bringing concepts of growth, emergence and metamorphosis into physical description.
Glasgow based Rachel Maclean is a graduate of ECA, was part of Place Projects, has recently exhibited in Heavy Metal Mouth organised by Polarcap and has just completed Market Gallery’s Studio Project.
Karen Lyons, previously the programme leader of the M.A. Contemporary Fine Art Course at the University of Salford, is a freelance sculptor based in Lancashire. She has exhibited widely across the U.K. and Europe.
EXHIBITION OPENING TIMES:
Saturday 10 April to Tuesday 20 April 2010
Opening hours: 12-6pm daily
Artists Talk: Sunday 18 April, 2pm
Patriothall Gallery, 1D Patriothall, off Hamilton Place, Edinburgh EH3 5AY
Admission: Free |
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