Review C109
Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage,
The wet centre is bottomless. 1
In his poem Bogland , Seamus Heaney describes the excavation of the great Irish elk from a bog on the west coast of Ireland. The fragmented remains of creatures like the Irish elk lie hidden in the dense, black wetland of County Mayo. Etched into steep, saturated, windblown fields, the lines and patterns of a prehistoric existence are preserved. When pulled from their fleshy darkness and rendered visible in a dusty museum display, these objects and artefacts reveal lost traces of lives once lived.
The Russian artist Varvara Shavrova's recent exhibition at the Cross Gallery draws inspiration from a residency at the Ballinglen Art Foundation in Ballycastle, North Mayo. Landscape Fossilised is a series of works that explore the tangibility of history and the physicality of time. Influenced by the Céide Field Archaeology Group, Shavrova used digitally manipulated images of archaeological survey maps in order to create a number of paintings on canvas, enamels on steel and graphite drawings on permatrace. Prior to working on this residency, Shavrova painted in London using a rich, warm palette. Her practice has become increasingly distilled since moving to Ireland.
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| Varvara Shavrova, Rathlacken monument series IV , acrylic on canvas, 83 x 83 cm; courtesy Cross Gallery |
On the surface, Shavrova's response to the complex, sedimentary landscape of North Mayo appears cold and clinical. Pale, cool hues of slate grey and heather pink are painted with vitreous enamel onto sheets of steel. These colours form the backdrop to a series of raised meandering lines, depicting aerial views of stonewalls, hedgerows and small abandoned dwellings. The light and dark sections of her compositions are divided into vertical and horizontal intersections. These echo the straight-line cuts used by archaeologists when dividing a field up for excavation. Industrial materials are mixed with organic subjects, rendering intangible matter permanent.
Unlike other landscape painters, Shavrova is drawn to places that are void of personal roots. This allows her to observe the terrain as an outsider. The detachment in her imagery is a refreshing interpretation of landscape painting in the West of Ireland. The smooth, industrial surface of the work replaces subjective, nostalgic presentations of a 'lost' land and people with an objective visual analysis. Shavrova's approach is similar to that of an archeologist. Quietly striping layers of landscape away, she reveals and conceals the many overlapping and interlinked histories that swell beneath moss-covered mounds and small forgotten streams.
Ciara Healy is an artist and writer who is currently working on an M. Phil. scholarship on Irish curatorial policy and practice at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
Varvara Shavrova: Landscape Fossilised , Cross Gallery, Dublin, July / August 2004
