Seeing Dragons In The Clouds

20 May 2008 in Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts

Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, until 7 June 2008

Physalas earrings by Nora Fok

CURATED BY Brochocka Baynes, Seeing Dragons in the Clouds – The Art of Imagination is a Harley Gallery touring exhibition featuring work by Nora Fok, Chila Kumari Burman, Robert Callender, Heidi Daish, Helen Denerley, Lizzie Farley, Peter and Linda Green, Leo Hills and Frank Hills. Utilising found objects, images and materials each artist has “used their imagination to see one thing as another, turning objects into art”. There is an element of playfulness in this show which is very enjoyable both for adults and children.

Imaginative use of materials encourages the viewer to look again at the everyday. Peter and Linda Green’s relief print ‘Dream Camera’ is a good example, utilising the imprint of hot water bottles to create a new apparatus for seeing. Activities in the adjacent small gallery explore some of the techniques and ideas in the works on display. Teachers and parents will also find the project books provided by the Harley Gallery a good additional resource for further exploration.

Nora Fok’s work transforms kitchen waste such as onion skins, eggshells, flower buds, sweet corn husks and other dried seeds into imaginary flowers, insects and objects of beauty. Her ‘Million Dollar Collar’ made from dried artichoke seeds is a form of adornment that celebrates beauty in nature but also the value in a single germ of an idea. Each seed used to construct this collar is brilliantly fine and the artist reveals the individual quality of each of these elements and in the form of the whole garment.

An artist who works with nylon monofilament to make jewellery, Fok invests the humble materials with precious and valuable status. Other works by Fok such as ‘Pseudo Flowers’ and ‘Bug Look Alike’ blur the lines between divine creation in nature and the nature of humankind to imagine and create. Even though the species on display are imaginary they are no less plausible and ingenious in their construction.

Heidi Daish’s surreal card cut-outs and hybrid plastic animals displayed at child height are constructed from easily accessed materials. ‘Out of the Flowers’, a wall piece of cut and folded card in stark silhouette, and ‘Out of the Sky’, a 3D card sculpture, both use forms derived from her fantastical plastic animal creations.

Her card constructions have a shadow play quality to them and her tree forms made from imaginary animal shapes are strangely animated. ‘Out of the Woods – On the Edge’ is darker in mood with white card layers at the base and black tree forms moving spookily above.

Lizzie Farley’s ‘On The Wing’ is a good example of imaginative drawing with wall pieces constructed from willow. The sense of movement and fluidity in these works is beautiful, inspired by the flight of swallows inhabiting the artist’s studio and their epic journey of migration from Africa to Dumfries. The use of willow is elegant and almost painterly, echoing the swiftness of a calligrapher’s hand and rapid movement of avian flight.

Another work which celebrates both imaginative use of materials and the art of drawing is Helen Denerley’s sculpture of ‘Molly The Lurcher’. Denerley is well known for her draughtsmanship and keen observation of the natural world through drawing and sculpture. Her lifelike animal forms in scrap metal take on a life of their own. On display with the sculpture are the artist’s preliminary drawings for ‘Molly’ which make the connection between the found materials, her creative process and the final work.

Less successful works in the show are a series of mixed media pieces by Frank Hills which are rather flat, and Robert Callender’s installations incorporating waste collected while beachcombing. Whilst the message of this work in connection with our “throwaway society” is admirable, visually they are dull and unimaginative in comparison with other works in the show.

Overall the exhibition succeeds in the art of the “double take” with many of the works and related activity providing opportunities for interpretation and engagement through the viewer’s own imagination. If you have children then this is a good exhibition to visit with hands on drawing activity and interactive PCs that explore selected artist’s work and the show’s central theme in more detail.

To adult eyes, the “art of the Imagination” requires far deeper exploration. However many of these pieces made me smile, a refreshing and welcome experience in any gallery space.

© Georgina Coburn, 2008

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