INTERFACE

REVIEW

ArtSway Open 09

ArtSway, Hampshire, 21 November - 24 January

Reviewed by: Eleonora Schinella »

Upon entering the main room at ArtSway Open 09, the artworks inhabit the space in a composed and respectful wait. Even the piece placed in central position, a large sculpture reminiscent of a wooden telescope, does not steal the viewer's attention but encourages it to proceed methodically along the exhibition.

Most of the pieces on show seemed to share this subdued canon. In 91, Richard Cook edits photographs of suburban landscapes so that the potential main subject of the image is covered by a uniformly coloured rectangle. Peripheral elements of the composition - a leaning telegraph pole, the empty laundry wire hanging from a window - are suddenly brought into focus by this intervention, resulting in a celebration of that which is overlooked and hidden from view. Susan Trangmar's A Play with Time is similarly concerned with rehabilitating simple forgotten details. Her video, shot through a static camera, captures spots of light hitting the leaves of a tree, the immobility of a house's window, the grass patches of a children's playground. The noises of life outdoors are amplified from normal background buzz to sole soundtrack, and compose an ode to the secret charm of the everyday. The mundane is turned into the precious also in Moira Lovell's portraits of coal miners. Their dust-covered faces, photographed as they emerge from the mine, stand out against the surrounding darkness, and speak with quiet pride of the British mining tradition. The images are an endearing portrait of the intimacy of the relationship between the miners and their workplace.

A surprisingly high number of works inspired by reflections on the industrial environment populate this exhibition. Similarly to Lovell, Alex Veness too is concerned with the effect that working in an industrial setting can have on people's perceptions of themselves and on their identities. He finds the subjects for his photographs amongst the profile pictures posted on a husband-finding website dedicated to women in the Russian industrial city of Samara. The dark purple polish on Olga's nails is an epitome of how the economic structure extends its influence to the realms of love and self-representation and to the relationship between the sexes.

Other works, on the other hand, prefer to investigate our dependence on industry and manufacturing through the invention of new sets of imagery rather than through a realistic approach. In Migration, one of the two paintings by Suzanne Moxhay on show, many small derricks are scattered throughout a vast, desolated landscape. The process that Moxhay employs in her work, by transforming found images into collages, then into three-dimensional models, and then into paintings, resembles the mechanic repetition of a production line, and contributes to the realisation that the landscape is a fabricated one, a dystopia quietly unravelling before our eyes until it eventually escalates in the fiery explosion depicted in the painting opposite, Rains Mine.

Tom Lovelace questions our reliance on the assumed functional purpose of manufactured objects by photographing machines that appear to have a practical use but in reality have been built by artist specifically for being captured on film. The staged appearance of the composition, with the object at the centre on a dark and empty background, accentuates the paradox between the expectation of a functional use and the emphasis on aesthetics and form.

One of the exhibited works that may appear to have little in common with most of the others is titled Being Somewhere. To begin with, it is a narrated video - the only human voice in a gallery empty of visitors. Artist Dave Ball is recounting his attempts to obtain an 'epiphanic' experience from his interaction with the open fields near Worpswede, in West Germany. He derives great peace from the serene surroundings, but struggles to elaborate his emotions into something more coherent and intelligible. This type of consideration differs radically from the other works presented because it is openly self-referential insofar as the artist uses his own practice as the basis for new work's context. However, this observation of the process undertaken by artists to construct meaning out of the experience of the reality that surrounds us prompted a more general reflection on the message of this edition of ArtSway Open 09 as a whole.

Despite the exhibition being the result of an open submission process unrestricted by theme, there was a striking convergence in the concepts and ideas brought forward by the selected artists, and in some cases even in the techniques used to bring such ideas to life. A certain predominance of photography as a medium is perhaps indicative of an interest in depicting the real world, or a picture closely related to it. This quest for authenticity results in artworks that are particularly intimate and detailed, and show a mindful and considerate creative approach. At the same time, however, they are not overloaded with unnecessary messages or abstruse symbolisms, but on the contrary apply an aesthetic of moderation, an appreciation of the bare essentials.

For an exhibition that confides so much in simplicity to convey its message, ArtSway Open 09 powerfully communicates a united vision hardly imaginable for an open submissions show. It is difficult to assess whether this convergence is a consequence of the panel's selection or was already present in the body of submitted works; however, it remains a considerable common ground. Under the influence of Dave Ball's piece, which underlines that all artworks are the result of the artist? efforts to experience, assimilate and interpret his or her surroundings, it is indeed tempting to see ArtSway Open 09 as representative of a commonly held world view, of course with its internal differences, but relatively homogeneous overall. "Bleak," said a comment in the visitors' book, but I disagree: subdued and perhaps a little melancholic it is, but this is a symptom of sincerity and not disillusionment. Quite the opposite, the lack of sensationalism and arrogance in this show is welcome and thoroughly refreshing.

Writer detail:

Eleonora Schinella is a London-based writer and educator, and works for a-n as Campaigns Researcher.

Venue detail:
ArtSway »
Station Road, Sway SO41 6BA

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