AMY-
So 408 bottles of pear cider and a barrel of kettle chips later we find ourselves having pulled off a memorable, interesting and well attended exhbition. Upon entering the vestibule one is met with a crescendo of sound, emitted from an animation projected onto the ceiling; a contribution, from participating artist Jonny Long. Necks craned, entrants who had just made it through the rather industrial style door bore witness to a 30 second film, closely followed by an exhibit which necessitated a plunging downward, a film played on a television screen situated at the depth of a black shaft upon whose sides swarmed an army of white protruding growths. Thus far, in true homage to Poe the aesthetic has confined itself to a monochromatic spectrum; a facet which continues in the work of Julia Mckinlay in her offering of a framed drawing in inkpen. Considered, linear and sparse, McKinlay also delivers a healthy dose of pathos in her arctic landscapoe with horn adorned penguin. Advancing slong the white corridor ( it took 4 coats of white paint to eradicate the stencilled face of a little spaceman who grinned back at us unphased after the first two coats. Anyone might think he was mocking our efforts to convert that long but very useful passageway into some semblance of a gallery space) one is then met with the small scale framed pencil drawings by artist cum curator Juliet Fellows Smith. Intense and densely shaded at intervals the drawings harbour something of the loneliness and melancholy present in the poster image and which emanates from the narrative of Poe’s piece of work from which the show took its title. An abandoned boat became something of a motif in the very fabric of the show itself. Lastly; an onslaught of sound. Just as one is losing oneself in the shadows of these quiet but brooding images which seem somehow to have been wraught into existence against their will a cacophony of American monologues berrate the gallery attendee back into the space, and one has the sense of being somehow chastised by these faceless voices reporting on various political issues. Accompanying this unashamedly rude awakening ( one is blasted by speaker on either side of the corridor) are stacks of pulped newspaper; a veritable mulch of text and Jeremy Oversier’s interpretation of the maelstrom as an endless mass of information rendered meaningless by its very magnitude. Turning right one then enters the gallery space ( via the St. Helier’s stall set up outside, obviously). For those of you who then proceeded into the gallery Well Done and for the rest of you who simply clung barnacle like to the table, practically buckling with pear cider for the rest of the evening Shame on you. The gallery comprised the work of no less than five separate artists which, in an area no larger than a generoous airing cupboard, ought perhaps to have felt crowded. In fact, this was by no means the case.
