SLWA display their talent at Dulwich Library
Review by Emily Rose Faludy
Art and literature – what an excellent combination. At the current show at Dulwich Library, the artworks are hung not on the walls, but at the ends of bookshelves. This creates a playful interaction between the books and art, art and viewer, who finds him/herself weaving in and out like an overgrown child searching for hidden treasures. I wonder if the juxtaposition of works next to certain sections is deliberate; perhaps not, but I am nevertheless intrigued by some of the pairings.
Sara Willett’s Interruption (gauged acrylic and oil on board) consists of a black painted wooden block with holes into which have been painted inhumanly perfect concentric circles or red, orange, pink and yellow. It has the pulsating dynamic quality of a Riley, without the accompanying visual discomfort. It looks like it come from outer space and therefore it is appropria
te that it is in the ‘Science Fiction’ section of the library, further imbuing the piece with a sense of otherworldliness and mystery.
As is to be expected, many of the works tackle issues of femininity and gender perception. There is even a bit of knitting, in Beata Kozlowska’s Untitled 1 (photograph). It resembles the aftermath of a WI knitting class turned rebellious; half finished dream catchers cartwheel across the white backdrop, and demented twists of string twirl across the picture plane – our fictional knitting class has absconded, leaving chaos in their wake.
Marnie Pitts’s beautiful drawing Encased (pencil on paper) shows a woman as a victim, an illustration to some tragic gothic fairytale. Her skirt is actually a cage, in which babies play. She is literally a walking receptacle, a baby machine. Her large breasts appear fake, part of a body suit of the type worn in a Cindy Sherman photograph. The atmosphere is surreal, with echoes of Magritte in the rock pattern wallpaper which continues outside of the window. Outside, it is raining. If this is a fairytale, then something has gone horribly wrong.
In the ‘Biology and Science’ section you encounter Secret Spaces; Cherry Pop 2008 (C-type print in vintage frame) by Kim Thornton. The cheeky title alludes both to the depicted object’s lurid colour and to a potential sexual act. The piece is borne of the practice of comparing female genetalia to non sexual objects which bear a physical resemblance. However, as opposed to the flower symbolism adopted by Chicago or O’Kieffe Thornton uses an object as reconciled with the notion as womanhood as the body part it euphemises: she photographs open handbags. This one is pink, exposing its satiny interior flaps. It mixes blatant symbolism with a smug innocence – what could possibly be offensive about a photo of a handbag? On the other side of the shelf, which is filled with titles such as ‘Mother Nature: Natural Selection and the Female of the Species’ is another one, Velvet box 08’ in which the fluffy material lining the opening of the bag seems triumphantly explicit – as much as a handbag can be explicit, of course.
Gracing the ‘Art’ section is Julie Bennett’s Come Back to Camden painted in the confident emulsion drips characteristic of her style. The image is ambiguous – is the woman depicted begging? Or simply holding a cup of tea? The answers are allusive and the work is both arresting and disquieting as a result.
Memorable too are Laura Morton Grffith’s paintings, including Cottage Green SE5 (oil on canvas) which shows a kitsch model of a house, of the variety that you might see in a junk shop. It has the innocence of a child’s birthday cake decoration. It is as if the artist is trying to summarize her experiences of a place into these unusual and well executed small scale homages.
Helen Bridges also paints about our visual experiences, but of a different kind. They are about how we perceive places that we are travelling past, presumably by train: London Bridge to Wiltshire 1 and 2 (screen print and emulsion on wood). They remind me of Paul Klee’s notion of ‘taking a line for a walk’, with the outline of buildings weaving in and out without end, mirroring our flickering perceptions when we travel at speed.
These, and many more notable works too numerous to be explored here, can be seen at Dulwich Library (Lordship Lane) until the 31 March
