I went to an opening at Red Gallery, to catch up with Indigo O’Rourke. She had a new show of new works. Expanding her exciting use of paper, her interest lies in the dimensions of the page, and uses for the picture plane. Her practice Oscillating easily between her almost sculptural uses, draping a long thin sheet on the floor or stacking sheets of give-away cloud images. Whilst also having both large and small picture planes conventionally on the wall. These show her intense biro drawings, accidental ink spills, coffee and wine-stains. Produced through her intense relationship with her medium, she pours hours, days and weeks into these segments of life, fragments of a personal text. The signature style of her figures, transposed over shapes and beautifully rendered lines become a story book of signs. The smaller portraits on the opposite wall are also segments of time, little tidbits of a larger frame work. They relate not only in their rendering but also in subject matter, the bikey boys stand, laugh and play. She documents with affection and sensitivity of a archeologist, preserving memory. Bellissimo
Tag: drawings
I also set up the Studio Gallery inside Kelly Space, and used it as away to get people to think about what they want to display and how they wish to use space. The only requirement was that they would have to leave a little piece od their work behind for the gallery. This then influencing the next person to use the space. In this image the work of Indigo O’Rourke sits quietly but boldly in the edges of the space. Commanding the viewer to crouch down and peer into the fine drawings that she painstakingly produces. Then you notice in the bottom right hand corner a chalk circle and a pile of sand that was left by the previous occupant Graham Brindley.
Counterfeit Sanctity at C3 brings together the work of two recent VCA graduates Carmel Seymour and Kate Tucker. In a examination of the transformative power of our belief systems. Carmel produces some beautiful rendered drawings that in addition to their mysterious and contentious content intrigued me. It knocked me off guard. Operating within the understanding of pencil drawing and watercolour she subverts them and plays with her visuals. Enlightening the occult and washing away our magic carpet.
Kate Tucker’s drawings were undeniably joyful. The skill of placement finds us sucked into the planes of existence that she creates cleverly within the two-dimensional. Her play of shape texture and colour are erudite while still holding onto the bold coarse edges and displacing lines. Her functional relationship to objects and symbolism has been digested and reinterpreted to allow her confident and exciting talent as a maker simply do the talking. The piece she named Necklace, gives rise to questions of the boundaries between art and craft that she has supplanted and made her own so easily. Well worth a look.
