peneloperuthandrews

Cosmo Sheldrake seems a soft, smooth creature, all his movements gentle and competent.  His curly hair is semi-long and a little in his eyes so he needs to flip it away from time to time, a quirk he fits perfectly into the rhythm of his movements.  Seemingly with a need to feel comfortable, his clothes are soft and slightly loose; a brushed cotton shirt, suede shoes cut simply almost to wrap around his feet, and a grey knitted jumper that he removes half way through the set.  The woolly ensures warmth when needed and can be removed when not.  He seems sensitive to his senses.

Sound is his palette, and he uses an obscure and wide range from clicks and scratches captured by a friend ripping up an animal carcass in a sound studio to the processed familiarity of Bix Beiderbecke.  The quality of sound type and juxtaposition is inspired.  Cosmo has an absent air when not performing, focusing sight and smiles on a person as he listens to them, but it is as if he examines the sound of the conversation for its inherent qualities, absorbing rather than engaging with his environment. 

He becomes a dancer as he runs the loops, moving to the music in lazy confident rhythm, each hit of the loop pedal or tap on the laptop is a step in the dance with timing to perfection.  Part of the sound is words, songs he sings in at opportune moments; in this set, folk songs full of haunting, strange tales that set visual scenes for the imagination and extend the range of sensory experience.  His voice is beautifully soft and clear, used at times with caricaturic comedic gobbledegook to create in real time what has been historically synthesized.  Also a beat boxer of incredible competence and subtlety, he then fits clicks into the tune reminiscent of Zulu. 

His turn at ‘Ancient and Modern’, hosted by The Railway Inn, Winchester, in November was a hypnotically rich set, repetitively building up and fading away, perfectly timed and choreographed.

Laura Ellen Bacon’s work is often site-specific, clinging to trees or working its way within or without architectural structure.  However, her sculpture “Into the Weave” cannot gain such a strong hold on its location, set as it is within The Gallery of Winchester Discovery Centre.  The largest artwork she has built so far, it comprises three giant woven structures in Somerset Willow and Silver Birch.  Built on site by Laura and a team of volunteers specially taught her unique weave pattern, the sculpture encourages human access and passage.  It is a mix of formal basket weaving and natural placement.  Redolent of hurdles, the main structures undulate, free-standing and leaning against the walls.  They are hunched into corners, skirting the edges, reaching out and up.

Laura likes the building to “feed the form”, but here it hardly can.  There is nothing for the weave to cling to.  Definitely beautiful sculptures, the light catches on the fine lines of twigs, a wild staccato of gold pinpointing the tips of the leaves and dancing a smooth passage along the fluid sweeping pattern of the weave, reminiscent of Celtic knot-work.  The willow casts a familiar scent throughout the room, however, not of nature.  It evokes the more artificial aroma of upholstery and carpet shops.

Designed to be walked into, the sculpture however holds no true interaction for the viewer.  There is a strange sense of distance, and one wonders if the piece truly fulfils its intention.  The hurdles seem very separate from their environment, standing independent in space, responding only to the shape of the walls.  The walkways give an illusion of entrance to another world, perhaps a doorway back to nature.  They do create a space, a hollow nest, den-like, but it is difficult to really get into the piece.  The work cannot float in a vacuum, in empty outer space, and as much as the location may try to be like a piece of white drawing paper, it can’t be.  Other things catch the eye; the square outline of the covers of “hidden” sockets on the floor, the run of lights on the ceiling which enters our visual frame as we follow the shape of the sculpture up.  The Gallery is a public building and we are so aware of others that we cannot switch off to the degree needed to enter the work wholeheartedly.

The Gallery is white painted with a beautiful natural wood floor.  Peaceful and quiet (quieter than nature) it has an enclosed, even penitentiary demeanour, isolated and muffled.  It is difficult to separate the setting from the composition, and this creates the illusion of a stage set, where we view from the rear and are aware of all the mechanical factors needed to set the scene.  These start to become as much a part of the design as the art itself, but in a completely different way to Laura’s other creations, where it is difficult to outline the separation between piece and its situation.  That work merges into its surroundings, causing them to morph into the piece.  Here the disconnection is distinct and the two components of the sculpture and setting are as opposed to each other as viewer and performer.

The only blurring of the edges comes with the form of shadows cast by the clear lighting.  These creep away from the weaving, interacting with the walls and floors and becoming part of both.  They have the illusion of being beneath the surface, and, therefore part of the structure of the environment.

Perhaps all instillation art represents the stage.  This is a set, illusion and reality blurred, haunting and dreamlike, strange and hyper-real.  It is certainly an experience, but here has an artificial feel, which I can’t help but feel is very different from the natural emotive and instinctive feel that the work would have alone in another setting.

Beauty in the Domestic, in the everyday detritus of living.  It is so easy to feel uncomfortable with the mess we make while living our lives, yet this is part of life.  Much cannot be done without making a mess, and I wonder whether anything creative could be achieved without leaving  and discarded certain elements.

To photograph this rubbish is to place a value onto it.  The framing contains it, draws attention to it.  Legitamises it.  It becomes about colour and form, its function changed, indeed, it gains function, gains a positive value.

If we fear or avoid making mess, we limit our creativity and development.  Here, mess connects to the idea of mistakes, the mess we make in life which is unseen.  The parts of an action which start to need to be discarded.

Mess can be cleared away, tidied up.  Surfaces can be restored.  In life, actions can never be undone.  History concretes what we do, solidifies it forever.  We may be tempted to tell ourselves it never happened.  But this does not clear up the mess, only tries to conceal it.

Forgiveness becomes a spiritual force.  Forgiving ourselves, forgiving others.  Wiping the slate clean.