- Venue
- Marston House
- Location
- South West England
At the commence of Somerset Arts Week I hoped that as part of this ‘Beneath the Surface’ would give me a taste of what was to come. The evening timing of the preview for this exhibition had been playing on my mind as the date approached, as I pondered how the outdoor sculptures would be lit as the light faded. Set amongst the grounds of the grand Marston House, works were presented in stables and the surrounding land. Arriving midway through the proceedings I was fairly shocked to see that my ponderings had clearly been mine alone, as with rapidly darkening skies it was near impossible to even see some of the sculptures nestled amongst the grass. Most were lit with candles, which although providing a certain ambience and mystery, did little to improve visibility of Cooper’s stone works. This was a real shame, given that those I did view successfully were small curiosities of love, darkness (ironically) and passion, that settled well into the welcoming earth and bed of fallen twigs. Better still was Cooper’s studio in one of the converted stables, where the entrails of his process were pulled out before you in all their glorious colour and vibrancy. A numerous amount of paintings lined walls and floor, a rare insight into the personal creation and working space of a practising artist. Intriguingly, written accompaniments and literature spread about the place detailed Cooper’s strong interest in the black death, (and what is left after death) and especially the affect it had on the local area. His work held up the exhibition title in its peeling back of boundaries, and investigation into past and forgotten consequences. Displacement and his own place in time were also areas of interest for the artist, and I was only sorry that I could not see more evidence of this in his work that was on display.
A few steps from the artists studio, Helen Langford displayed her work in the dark, disused stables. On discovering some literature by Langford I was given an insight into her thinking. It seemed she had spent some time in the old building, getting a feel for its past use and absorbing the prevalent atmosphere of the quiet and forgotten. A collection of skeletons, nests and dead insects made up a ‘curiosity cabinet’ of the stable’s history, necessitating our engagement to pull open tiny drawers and playing on our natural curiosity. Less absorbing were the following works based around the now absent horses. In the first stable, the door is cordoned off by a hung horse-rug, and we are forced to peer over the high bars to view the dramatically lit interior. What is lit however, is another hanging horse-rug. In the next stable, there is no light, but an open stable with a horse-rug neatly folded on the centre of the floor. Accompanied by a sound piece of clattering hooves and horses breathing, I was left wondering why Langford had decided to simply state the obvious, by suggesting the past presence of horses, and their current absence.
The real highlight of this exhibition for me, was the work of Anthony Rogers. His fantastic curvaceous sculptures carved from a variety of woods were so organic they could have grown where they sat. In the stable yard his vortex-like circle of cedar met your gaze from its position on the stone wall, drawing your eye from its pleasing swirl of waved carvings, to the shining sap oozing out from what could easily be a living thing. Elsewhere he displayed six spherical pieces on the floor of a small stable, worked by the artist into shapes reminiscent of fir cones, appearing almost gnawed into their textured, patterned state. One of his winding, reaching tendrils of wood placed on the grass seemed to almost be extending of its own accord, such was its close association with its environment. His work is warm and natural in such a physical sense, that it was difficult to restrain myself from reaching out and enjoying the curves and grooves with my hands.
