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The obvious incongruence of domestic aluminium kitchen utensils in a gallery space provides an accessible starting point for viewing Donna Marcus' 99% Pure Aluminium, however it is gradually dispersed in the aesthetic pleasure of formal display. It is not so much that the luxuriance of the domestic world is revealed to us by the array of objects and the rich colours displayed; rather we are repositioned within this excessive world and reminded differently of its pleasures. The sculptures and installation pieces surprise at first, by reminding us of the gorgeous colours of anodised aluminium, something we perhaps had not remembered, but the pleasure of this demonstration is always teased out by ironic and uncanny moments. There is a perverse sense of technical expertise which sits oddly against the ironic precision that characterises the exhibition. The first piece, After Albers, is a careful square of new aluminium jelly moulds, their pale curves reflecting softly and with textbook precision the intense colours of picnic cups at their centre. However in achieving the very modernist aesthetic it mocks, After Albers both assures completion and conveys its uneasiness, suggesting that the pleasures of viewing and remembering are not so smoothly aligned.
My own pleasure in viewing so many kitchen utensils – for instance each part of the Big City Triptych is made up of twenty-five components, each of which is assembled from half a dozen objects – is clearly a consumption, a kind of greed that is constantly being satisfied; no matter how much I want there is always more to see, more to recognise. In this I am reminded of the nostalgic pleasure of collecting, and I imagine dismantling the sculptures, separating them