- Venue
- the front room at the salt gallery
- Starts
- Thursday, April 24, 2008
- Ends
- Friday, June 26, 2009
- Address
- 57 Fore Street Hayle Cornwall Tr27 4dx
- Location
- South West England
A solo show by Alex Pear. These videos and sculptures represent a selection from an ongoing series of works exploring non-reversible state changes. As their title suggests they touch lightly upon the nature of death. It is intended that the works displayed here should be seen as interacting with each other, creating stories or conversations. There is a certain inevitability about each piece for which I do not apologise. Alex Pearl, 2008. – The films show close ups of what he describes as ‘non-reversible state changes’: a match igniting and burning down, an aspirin dissolving in a glass, a balloon deflating. In each case the object has been given two dots and a line, the absolute minimum to evoke a face. The dots are not eyes, the line is not a mouth, yet the aspirin acquires a sinister personality, continuing to glare out from the glass as its eyes dissolve and enlarge into the eye-sockets of a skull. In the same way, the balloon’s slow deflation from plump jiggling certainty to flaccid impotence becomes full of pathos, particularly given the minimal soundtrack: apart from one balloon which bursts with a bang, the awful change is endured in silence. It is as though the line and dot face is a spell, which acts on us even though we know it shouldn’t; this bleak, persuasive magic performed with minimal resources. Lawrence Bradbury, 2007
