Underwater

Bluecoat, School Lane
11th December 2010 - 13th February 2011

Reviewed by Ross O'Toole

Nakedness, depression and isolation are just a few of the words I initially scribbled down in my notepad after watching Dorothy Cross’ work. The video features an almost lifeless women submersed in sunlit water, floating around with a multitude of jellyfish. At one point, I half expected police frogmen to swim into the scene and recover the naked pale body.

Bill Viola’s ‘Becoming Light‘ is a gloriously defined piece featuring a naked couple treading water in a deep blue surround. Whereas Cross’ work appears to deal more with the experience of the self, Becoming Light is far more suggestive of the uncertainly we experience with intimacy. In any case, being under water certainly poses obvious communication problems.

The other exhibitions include bizarre and disturbing drawings from Ed Pien. According to the program, these are battling ‘sea creatures’, though to me they looked more like disfigured humans engaging in lewd acts. There are also a small collection of Seunghyun Woo’s coral like sculptures, which possess the quality of melted multicoloured candle wax.

Towards the back of the exhibition I entered a room full of hanging metal sculptures emitting weird sounds. At first I though it was pitched up duck chatter but are in fact ‘the strange chirruping of fish’ (according to the official leaflet). In any case, it makes the street view of festive shoppers through the windows seem extremely sinister.

The moving imagery is perhaps the highlight of the exhibition. They create a calming, troubling and explicitly vague feeling, of which I can only describe as those introspective moments in a bathtub. They all share subtle compositions, without any immediate meaning or context, inciting curiosity and reflection. More than its total sum of parts, Underwater is well worth the time.

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