INTERFACE

REVIEW

Lindsay Seers ; It Has To Be This Way

Matt's Gallery , London
21 January - 15 March 2009

Reviewed by: Lotti Closs »

There’s something oddly familiar in the colour blue that dominates Lindsay Seers most recent solo exhibition at Matt’s gallery, London. This, along with the space and shapes used; feel reminiscent of something akin to a reconfiguration of a hospital or airport. It seems once one has spent time in these sorts of communal confines, they leave a distinct impression on the memory; maybe not in the forefront, but somewhere muddled in the subliminal, along with other mundane things, possibly to appear as a dim canvas for a dream when in a deep sleep sometime. These utilitarian environments themselves seem removed or detached slightly from reality; transitory spaces that are not quite like the outer world, separated, a gateway from or to somewhere different.

 

On entering the exhibition there is a small blank room on my right which conveys a feeling of a waiting area in a research facility; a table with space for six, headphones and a television- apparently showing some sort of old history documentary. On the table are a stack of newly published blue books- or ‘novella’s’, adorned with a white net of a star and the title of the exhibit, provided along with other print outs to keep. Taking one, I walk ahead to the more alluring room containing the structural part of the work. On the left of this dim space, you have to manoeuvre yourself past a large MDF sculpture of a sort of star or crystal. The shape is already abstract through its placing, having to pass by it and look backward before recognising its form. It is painted all one colour, cobalt blue, which is the same as the walls of the dominant, multiple walled room built within this room. There is also a smaller replicate crystal aside its entrance. The walls of the gallery are the usual white, though ambiently illuminated by the reflection of the blue assembly’s. The possible hexagonal room- it is hard to tell as it is backed up against the inner wall- contains the video projection central to the exhibition’s fractured narrative. The structures’ height, almost touching the ceiling, gives an impression that it is still growing, potentially part of a larger structure emerging thorough the walls and bringing these questionably familiar shapes with it.

 

Within the structure the walls fade through the darkness into a domed shape, a long cushioned bench lines the back wall facing two circular back projections, playing in partner. A narrator is recollecting his thoughts, reflecting on a relationship with a lover named Christine, as if a diary entry is being read aloud. Walking into a looped film, it always takes a few minutes to adjust and contemplate where one is in the yet unknown narrative. Though the space, along with the surrounding narrator’s voice and the two ominous projections already inform the viewer that they may have passed through some sort of mysterious portal. The narration vibrates from below, through the seats, the only light omits from the twinned projections, these imitate windows facing outward; as if looking through the narrator’s eyes into his most private memories.

 

There was an accident bringing masked guilt on the narrator’s part, Christine loses her memory ending up in hospital. Her whole sense of reality and self is lost, aside from her previous obsession of the 17th century Queen of Sweden, coincidentally, named Christina.

 

He talks of her fascination and alienation of photographs; when looking through a box of personal photographs the detached Christina not quite grasping the concept of documenting a snippet of time and now terrified of being captured within one.

 

After losing his job as an actor, the narrator (now known only as ‘S’) is forced to take up a part time job; archiving Queen Christina’s alchemical manuscripts.

 

Two dreams are described;

 He habitually falls into a state of unconsciousness at her bedside to dream of tall walls in a maze made out of mud, and a never-ending ladder ascending into the light of day. There is a feeling that is there is something above, but unreachable, always awaking by her hospital bed before he can reach the ethereal.

 

In the other, Christine appears as Queen Christina, but in male form, and makes love to him, which he does not refuse, speaking of deep desire, anger, lust and obsession. ‘I wanted to merge with her, become her, climb inside of her body and consume her as she had me..’

 

The softly glowing visuals combine still images and slowed down video snippets of memories moving dreamily across the vision. The narration does not give us the whole story; or at least tells it from an internal and ambiguous point of view; suitably leaving the audience with a dismembered narrative, reflecting Christine’s mental state and her relationship with S. The mention of photographs is where the presence of the artist first creeps in, Seers is known in her other works to deal with a strange attitude toward photographs; using her apparent life story to embellish with surreal twists. This recollection momentarily fractures the empathetic pull of the intimate film, in which reality and fiction become combined, though this becomes a staple to build upon the mythical nature of her work. ‘It’s the trick of tricks and her work has often sought to deepen, absorb, internalise that trick, not lessen it’ (M.Yvette, 2009), She seemingly uses this fact to emphasise the almost physical nature of layers to her narratives.

 

On the outside wall of the domed projection room, and behind the larger crystal, there is a hidden away monitor with headphones showing a film taking the form of a contextualising documentary. Footage of the excavation of Queen Christina’s tomb and historians investigating her fascination in alchemy and spiritual practice as well as speculating about the young queens sexual nature; she was rumoured to be a hermaphrodite and never married. There are subtitles and voice over's merging and overlapping, the voice of a female (the artist?) and the voice of a male (historian or lover?), through which emerges that Christine is Seer’s half sister, adding to the intimate dissection of the narrative and its haziness of a sense of place. The mirroring of Christine and Christina arises through the physical placing of the videos emphasising the both the sharp contrast between, and the blurring of the fact and fiction, intimate and impersonal, architectural and temporal.

 

The image of the crystal, and it’s molecule-like nature re-occur throughout moving image, 2D and physical construction, to create a potency that becomes a welding symbolic element to it has to be this way. What it may symbolise is projected upon with the layers of truth and fiction. Textures of an interpersonal narrative reflect through a plainly presented wooden construction, the hand made MDF crystal takes the weight and importance of ancient symbolism transferring it to a modern nature. This DIY materiality becomes a stage from which the film and the notion of spirituality and magic can spring; theatrical illusion and ambiguous symbology embody the themes of coagulation, merging and an ‘oneness’.  The architectural element to the exhibit seems to mirror a transfiguration of a space within a dream- well known, though quietly odd and perfectly haunting. This underlying sentiment seems to follow me through the nature of the novella, feeding the cycle of questions and theories, seeping into everyday life; becoming an impressionable and confounding experience.

 

 

 

Writer detail:

I have recently graduated from BA Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, my practice includes creating objects, sculpture and installation as well as dabbling with film, sound and illustration. Finding my feet in life and work as both an individual artist and together within a group of graduates, planning to set up a new collective with shared interests and goals, whilst creating a wide spectrum of work.

Venue detail:
Matt's Gallery »
42-44 Copperfield Road, LONDON E3 4RR

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