IG:LU, Inverness, until 30 June 2011

IT IS always a pleasure to climb the stairs to IG:LU for the element of surprise on arrival. Each show allows creative takeover of the space, and Ordnance Cannoneer Detail is no exception. Georgina Porteous’s latest collaborative work with sound designer SiD InneS, occupying two rooms, successfully expands the range of the artist’s practice into exciting new territory.

A spatial artist using mixed media, Georgina Porteous initially studied Television and Sound Studies in Glasgow before completing a BA (Hons) Fine Art Degree at Moray School of Art, Elgin. She has worked as a set designer for The Giant Olive Theatre in Kentish Town in London, and has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows, including the SSA annual exhibition, Dundee and RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh (2009), winning the Blackbox Award from Glasgow Arches in 2010. Currently the artist is working with the Conch (Sound Studio) by Walker and Bromwich as Conch Guardian and Documentor for its 2011 Highland Tour.

Detail from Ordnance Cannoneer

In previous work Porteous has consistently presented the audience with challenges of perception, causing us to question how and what we see through drawings, sculpture, installation and video work. There is always been an element of playful subversion in the artist’s practice, and the way that sound and image are displayed in this latest exhibition distil this quality to an impressive degree.

Often our experience of projected images is essentially passive and fixed; here the relationship between sound and image, together with the space occupied by the viewer takes on an intriguing dynamic, begging further investigation. In the main space at IG:LU the viewer first encounters two opaque glass plates, or screens, suspended facing each other, onto which are projected images from two cameras simultaneously filming both the human action and the destination.

On the first plate a man throws stones while on the second we see a way marker by the sea which he is attempting to hit. Standing between these two images it feels as if the stones are being thrown across the space that the viewer actually inhabits, the sound of each pebble with its metallic reverberation seemingly hitting both the screen and its target of the way marker.

The way that the gallery space has been stripped back, white walls and carpet removed to reveal bare wooden floorboards adds to the sensation and presence of sound. We know what we are seeing/hearing is recorded, yet the spatial relationship between ourselves, the passage of time and changing light on film make the experience actual for the duration of the loop. It’s as if the stones being thrown are hitting our consciousness in a way that makes moving around the projections to investigate them further a compellingly necessity.

Screen shot from the video

The work is characteristically contemplative and provocative, using sound and image to create a new space within the work for the viewer to inhabit. When seen from behind, the opaque glass also mirrors the opposing image, creating multiple layers of space, time and experience, action and aspiration condensed within the same frame. This is a departure for the artist in terms of spatial use of sound as opposed to use of soundtrack in dialogue with a series of images or sculptural objects within an installation, and it is a very exciting sign of evolution, ripe for further development and future collaboration.

The installation in the gallery

The work is immediately playful and deceptively simple, prompting viewer interaction and thought. The natural sound of the wind, waves and pebbles are soothing, allowing the viewer to feel comfortable exploring the installation and the complexity of seeing within it.

The second work is more lyrical in nature, the projected image on the ceiling appearing in its angularity like a shaft of light, into the room but also the mind. Here the way marker is elongated, the texture of the ceiling rendering the image in a beautifully painterly way. Attached to the top, a series of coloured ribbons billow in the wind, and significantly the first view of this work is from the doorway/ threshold.

Changes in colour and light on film are gradual, reflecting the passage of time, until the sign and the ribbons, separating and dancing in the wind, become a silhouette. The white-washed window within this room beckons the viewer with its human symbol (a recurrent motif in Porteous’s work), the head a fish eye peephole onto the world outside. What we expect from this focal window view is clarity, what we get is distortion, only a temporary disappointment because we can discern through this narrow circular opening the coloured ribbons fluttering outside, opaque but still in view.

Within this conceptual space there is engagement with visual language that is ambiguous but also tangible, the artist’s hand present in her signature scratched onto the window surface along with the enigmatic title of the show. The flow of movement and sound in relation to the image in this work is unexpectedly poetic, the emotional effect as potent as the contemplation of human perception that it provokes. There is a sense of quiet hopefulness in this work, in the elusive marks created by the rainbow ribbons held aloft in the filmed image and their elusiveness as real objects hung out of reach and obscured by opaque glass.

These are intelligent and accomplished works by an artist that continues to create captivating and challenging visual work, presented here in an equally engaging space.

© Georgina Coburn, 2011

Links

• IG:LU
• Georgina Porteous
• Georgina Porteous on Facebook