With the installation of my new work and the objects that I had selected from the collections now completed, I can take a step back.
The series of drawings, ‘Gaze’, that I have been concentrating on over several months, were made especially in response to the space in which they are now being shown. They hang suspended in mid-air within a line of wall-based glazed cases. The cases themselves act like light boxes – being lit only internally from the top. The light falls primarily behind each drawing and through the pierced, cut and at times semi-translucent paper supports. The gallery itself is otherwise quite dark, thus adding to the sense of the cases being illuminated. The approach to the space was also important – entering it either through the extremely dark miniatures gallery or alternatively through the textile galleries, colours one’s final encounter with the work.
Immediately opposite the cases which hold my drawings is a further line of cases in which the small objects that I selected from the collections have been placed – I will talk what prompted this selection in a future posting. The positioning of the two lines of cases means that the images of the drawings are reflected in the glass cabinets holding these objects and vice versa. The reflections themselves echo the sense of distancing and beckoning that I was seeking to achieve in the drawings themselves – but again, more of that later…
Some images of the installed drawings and objects:
Click on thumbnails for larger versions.
