- Venue
- Floor One Gallery
- Location
Mixed media artist Sharon Barrett and photographic artist Wendy Grant developed close links in the studios of University of Northampton before collaborating on this, their first joint exhibition outside the town.
The left of the space is devoted to Barrett’s digital scans, photographs and assemblages of discarded light bulbs. Illuminated by her Standard Lamp, the shade of which is lined with scans of defunct light bulbs, there is something very ‘Habitat’ about the display. Presented as highly aesthetic objects, Barrett’s flower-like Light Bulb Clusters sit in a glass case whilst her orderly Light Bulb Stack #1 stands on a conventional plinth. However in other assemblages such as Bicycle Wheel With Light Bulbs and Used Light Bulbs On Board, the aestheticism is punctuated by the carcasses of bulbs with broken glass and exposed filaments; bringing home the ephemerality of these utilitarian objects. The presence of the bicycle wheel and the stool (which serves as a plinth for Light Bulb Stack #2) is an inescapable reference to Duchamp, however Barrett has not abstracted these objects from their original function. She has instead adopted them in their obsolescence and given them a new durability in the gallery.
Whilst Barrett is interested in the life and death of objects, for which the discarded light bulb is a metaphor on many levels; Grant’s sensitivity is more humanitarian. Her photo series’ displayed on the right of the space, are the culmination of relationships she has built with local elderly people exploring the mnemonic properties of their most treasured objects. Great intimacy with her subjects is exemplified by the close proximity at which the photographs of objects in their hands have been taken. We will never know the personal stories of Daisy, Hilda, Connie and Syd whose names simply title the works. However, the larger than life scale of the prints allows us access to not only the minutest of details in their treasured belongings which include photographs, woodwork and paperweights but also to every line and contour on their hands. Different to the rest, Hilda, a series of photographs showing her hands rapidly playing the piano rather than merely handling an object remind us that it is not the physicality of the object which intrigues Grant but unlocking the transient human experiences that it comes to contain.
In a corner Grant’s Daisy #6, a small black and white photograph, is a quiet yet dark presence. The ‘handless’ still life composition of an empty silver dish and a clock on which the hands and therefore time, are blurred; exists as a reminder of transience in this show which, at it’s most superficial level presents the viewer with solid objects and depictions of them. Across the room, the mysterious red light bulb amongst Barrett’s colourless clusters somehow seems to mirror this warning. Such dialogues complete this exhibition, which appears to bisect the room yet considers side-by-side transience and material culture, memories and objects and perhaps, the mortality of humans and objects alike.
