CIRCA 112 review
And so it stays just on the edge of vision
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill . [1]
In his poem Aubade , Philip Larkin reflects upon the impending inevitability of death in the lonely darkness of night. He describes the moving shapes that haunt the corners of his vision. As daylight slowly strengthens, his bedroom returns to its normal shape and the presences of the previous night seem strange and out of place.
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Isabel Nolan: Sleeping dog , 2004, pencil on paper, 21 x 29.5cm; courtesy the artist
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Everything I said let me explain is the title of Isabel Nolan's recent exhibition at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin. The show is a visual exploration of the thoughts and shapes that occupy the mind at night. Like Larkin, Nolan attempts to interpret how these presences morph and change, grow bright and disappear in order to be felt and understood.
One of the seven artists from the Republic of Ireland selected for this year's Venice Biennale , Nolan's work is primarily concerned with forms of representation and addresses the difficulty of attaching meaning to experience. In this exhibition, drawing is the main discipline through which she expresses her experiences of the night. Along the gallery wall, which was painted a light grey in order to soften the sterilised white, small drawings and paintings explore the shifting shapes of the night-time presence. Many of these shapes have a repeated circular motif, others are more angular. In the centre of the gallery, two mahogany tables present a series of portraits of sleeping faces and another collection of night-time shapes.
Torn from a notebook, these drawings are placed under heavy sheets of glass. They seem to be floating over the dark table top and have an abandoned, spontaneous beauty. Also on the table, a small silver screen plays a short DVD entitled Quiet please , in which most of the drawings on show are animated into a short film. This film begins with a sequence of sleeping portraits and shape drawings. The images are occasionally interrupted with fragments of handwritten text which refer to night-time thoughts. The thoughts shift from simple descriptions - "These presences vary in size, but are never very big" - to more intimate personal reflections - "How could you know what or who you are?"
As the text grows increasingly reflective, the night-time shapes begin to multiply, becoming larger on the screen, filling it completely before receding back into pulsating circles of orange, red and green. Flickering and shimmering, they are the colours seen when you close your eyes.
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Isabel Nolan: Sleeping dog , 2004, pencil on paper, 21 x 29.5cm; courtesy the artist
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The tenderness Nolan expresses towards her slumbering subjects is almost palpable in her delicate Sleep sequence drawings, most especially in Sleeping dog . Whilst the exhibition offers many glimpses of intimate narratives, it simultaneously uses tools to prevent the viewer from fully absorbing them. The glass upon the table top or the newsprint that covers the text in Available ensures that elements of Nolan's night-time experiences remain private, almost contradictory.
This contradiction, between the physical intimacy of lying next to someone and the sense of distance experienced when they sleep, is prevalent in the show. Nolan has created a strong visual metaphor for the unaccountable phenomenon that separates two people, even as they lie side by side. Her drawings are an expression of the difference between distance and proximity, sleep and consciousness.
Ciara Healy is an artist and writer based at Pallas Studios; she is currently completing her Ph.D. in Irish curatorial policy at Dublin Institute of Technology.
Isabel Nolan: Everything I said let me explain , Project Arts Centre, Dublin, March - May 2005
