A Point in the Field at the Exeter Phoenix
The latest art exhibition showing at the Exeter Phoenix combines the work of Anne Gathmann and Fiona MacDonald, in an exploration of a challenging topic. Their aim throughout the exhibition is to capture, re-create and discuss the ideas of fluidity and flux. In a visual feast of sculptures, paintings and indeed some works that sit on the border between the two mediums, the artist’s toy with perception and stasis.
On reviewing the exhibition, I was initially unsettled by the amorphous forms oozing from the paintings and sculptures of Fiona Macdonald, and unsettled by the repetitive jostling of Anne Gathmann’s abstracted pattern paintings. This feeling, on further analysis was a sense of confusion, something like motion sickness, as these works are seemingly shifting through time before my eyes. There is not the static weighted assurance behind these pieces, like a painting of a provincial landscape, or a bust of a Renaissance philosopher. They do not ‘show’ any one precise thing, nor provide the audience with a neat sense of satisfaction; allowing meaning to be apparent, to say ‘this is a piece of work about ....’ What both Gathmann and Macdonald are interested in is probing the fragility of our ‘relation to reality’, and does so to great effect with the exhibition luring the viewer in to questioning the forms that lie unclear before their eyes. On speaking to members of the public about what they saw in the work, a diverse collection responses were found to exist, someone saw ‘an allusion to a Japanese colour palette’ another ‘dreamscapes, shifting from dream to nightmare’. There is a commonality in all of the works, making it a concise and well planned collaboration, but the link is not obvious. What each painting does is evoke a process of questioning and inner-subjectivity. The work is abstract in terms of meaning, but therefore all the more personal, as the viewer engages with each piece in a unique way.
Anne Gathmann’s work in this exhibition consists of mainly paper and paint based creations, which are arguably paintings, but also possibly sculptures due to the wrinkling and folding of the pieces against their two dimensional form. Gathmann’s work is exhibited in an interesting way – playing with formal presentation. The work overlaps, is partially rolled, and in one instance lies on the floor of the exhibition. The portrayal of her work as such means the viewer has to be active in looking at it. Walking around, leaning and trying to obtain the definitive view that one expects from a painting. This however cannot be obtained with Gathmann’s work; it is frustrating, but only due to our traditional expectations from a piece of work. It is a challenge to find the perspective you like most from the forms, the final perception is personal.
By comparison the work of Fiona Macdonald is more elaborate than the minimal pattern based play of Gathmann. Macdonald’s paintings are cacophony of colour, replicated textures and images fused seamlessly together to create fantastical scenes. The paintings feel organic at the core, but it is impossible to designate literal meaning due to feeling of continuous evolution. The work is completely absorbing due to the fascination which takes the viewer in quite how and what has been created. The same applies to her equally mythical looking sculptures made from unfired clay and covered in globules of pigmented silicone. They look like something is trying to break out throughout the thick fluid tactile coating, or alternately like something half melted by the sun. Speaking to Fiona Macdonald, she explained her aim was to create ‘painterly sculpture’, and by working with the silicone which is ‘inherently imprecise’ the feeling she was able to achieve was ‘unfixed’. It is clearly this play of the process of ‘becoming’ that pervades both artists work. Fiona also explained how her paintings and work were based on representations of classical myth by Titian, Bernini and Goya among others. The sculptures are a reworked, a retelling of these Baroque masterpieces in a very different style.
Overall the exhibition is well worth a visit – the play of formal qualities of material and the feeling of constant transformation is exciting and novel. The ideas of representing reality in a more dynamic way is a challenging task to undertake, but both Gathmann and Macdonald achieve in harnessing at least some of the dizziness one feels when contemplating such difficult areas of thought.
