‘Uncanny Nature’ was a timely compendium of work. While it was an unsettled grouping of artists, this is apt. The essential theme of the show was that of a world in flux, which the artists had either knowingly or intuitively responded to. On socio-political terms the works tended to avoid overt commentary, but it was in the subtlety of the selection that they had potency.
The exhibition’s curator, Rebecca Coates, stated in her premise for the show that ‘For generations nature and the landscape have been extolled in their unfettered state, whilst equally, they have been subverted, mutated and transformed’. Her show, she tells us, presents works ‘depicting the natural world beyond the topographical or geographical’. It was a giddy premise and got off to a rollicking start with Richard Giblett’s pine-wood escalator at the entrance. But turning the corner the escalator became a hollowed out hothouse, the plants threatening to break through the structure. It was a wonderful piece of science fiction that reminds one of the power of nature.
Opposite Giblett’s fantastical installation was a work of even greater potency, Nick Mangan’s Untitled (Nest) in which an aluminum ladder was being overwhelmed by diseased timber. The metal frame was subsumed by this creeping growth and, given its title, one shuddered to imagine what would swarm from the nest when its metallic meal was completed. Between these two installations was Noël Skrzypczak’s stunning plasticated-paint wall installation, Monsoon, a giant hallucinogenic splash, a multi-hued mold that threatened to join Magnan’s work to totally mutate the pristine gallery space.
But Hany Armanious had certainly done his best to beat them to it. His massive floor installation—Bubble Jet Earth Works