Gallery in the Victorian Cloakroom, 5th - 20th MarchCorner of Park Row and Woodland Row, Bristol.
Open Saturdays 11-5pm and Sundays 12-4pm
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Gallery in the Victorian CloakroomAs part of a group show, I am showing work in a disused Victorian toilets where most of the original fittings are still in place; encompassing marble, porcelain, wrought iron and mahogany.
The theme being 'In Progress', my work is a personal response to the space using ongoing research into materials. The toilets themselves had such a strong presence, I was keen to make only small interventions in the space to encourage the act of looking, and work as enigmatic starting points for reflection.
I was struck by the contrast between the era of building and now. Built as a contemporary temple to water, the toilets seem to represent an era where religion was being replaced with an emphasis on technology, with the biblical connotations of the toilets' name, "The Deluge". The physical presence of the cisterns ranged up high around the room was contrasted by the present lack of any water within; becoming to me a metaphor for all that has changed in belief and attitude.
To symbolise this sense of presence and absence I tried to imagine a religious idol with the body departed; a pile of robes. In my research I became interested by the symbolic upward pointing hand of a wooden Angel of the Annunciation, made in 1350. Signifying speech and God, this also became significant to me as I considered the other connections with Victorian "this way' signs and the simple device to lead the eye up to original attractions of the toilets; the cisterns.
Ranging from leaves balanced around the sinks to printed porcelain flakes camouflaged amongst the peeling paint including a Daily Mail crest, to a small empty box of matches tucked high supporting a porcelain match, my interventions aim to lead the eye around the space.
Other artists involved include photographers, sculptors, musicians, performance art and painters.
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