CIRCA 111 review

Spartan, stripped-down Japonisme; tonal harmonies, symphonies and agonies; the bubbling, molten residue at the centre of an alchemist's bowl. All are invoked by Sally Osborn's recent solo show at Doggerfisher.

It is immediately apparent that this is more than a collection of recent works, and the title of the exhibition references a similar approach to display in the collaborative interior schemes of nineteenth-century aesthetes, E W Godwin and J M Whistler. The manifesto piece here, and the work which sets the scene for Osborn's ocular concept album, is the Butterfly Cabinet-inspired skeletal wooden sculpture shown 'open', and kimono-like in shape. This work announces itself in both scale and arrangement in the main gallery space.

Sally Osborn: Untitled, 2004, watercolour on paper; courtesy Doggerfisher

The other works comprising this latter-day harmony in yellow and gold are wall-based, but equally punctiliously placed, and from the start it is clear than this is a holistic body of work, which should be viewed as such, though Osborn's aesthetic inquiries occur both within and between each work. In her use of watercolour on aluminium foil, Osborn variously conjures up cloisonné enamel in bleeding arts and crafts colours or the lumpen mass of precious metals melded together by heat. The application of paint, and how it lies upon the surface, parallel Whistler's own experiments with diluted, homemade watery 'sauce', applied in staining layers to his late canvases. Most compelling are the watercolour portraits of a young boy's face rendered softly in the hues of coloured shadows - all pink, yellow, grey-blue and violet, like the flesh tones of Renoir's nudes. One of these is painted on a lightly embossed, pink, paper tablecloth, which drops from the wall like fabric.

Sally Osborn: Untitled 2004 (detail), watercolour on paper and tissue paper; courtesy Doggerfisher

A clear and piercing curiosity in the properties of surface, form, paint and space informs this exhibition. At times, though, some works project an aura of being almost too absorbed or too heightened in their concentration on the minutiae of process and mark- making. As ardently placed and choreographed as the objects are, this is nevertheless more than a study in cool formalism. There is a sincerity in some of these gingerly and tentatively executed works, which comes across as delicate and elegant rather than adopting the contrived awkwardness of much clumsily assembled, evanescent lo-fi art.

The opaque poetics of Osborn's work may call for an investment of time, reflection and an aptitude for close reading on the part of the viewer, but even when aspects of this exhibition remain as unresolved investigations, the obvious intensity and immersion of the artist in her work is in keeping with her explicitly referenced art-historical forebears, also known for the fastidious exploration of their discipline.

Susannah Thompson is a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Historical and Critical Studies, Glasgow School of Art.

Sally Osborne, Doggerfisher, Edinburgh, November - December 2004

Article reproduced from CIRCA 111, Spring 2005, p.103