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Huts, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 23 October - 1 December 2004 The word 'hut' implies not so much a place of permanent repose as a temporary space to retreat to. It implies a passing stage and, in a sense, a crisis. The hut can provide a sanctuary for the individual from which to make sense of the world or in which to prepare to meet one's demons. There is no shortage of demons, both manifest and implied, in this group exhibition, and danger bubbles below the surface and in the undergrowth. In some of the works on display these demons take a form familiar to us from the ancient iconography of evil; horned figures and death-like apparitions abound.
This show, however, is not simply about good and evil. Death and decay pervade the works but, as in the painting by Laura Owens, death is presented as an event like any other. It is observed in the midst of life and by all the objects in the world. Two cats discover two human-like skulls in a forest clearing. The setting sun looks on benignly as it disappears behind a hill, which itself wears a slightly forlorn expression. Even the skulls look back at the living with a green flicker of recognition. Life it seems is as incomprehensible as death. There is a fairytale atmosphere which runs all through this show. In particular, the work of Owens, Royal Art Lodge (Michael Dumontier, Marcel Dzama and Neil Farber) and Peter Doig seems to articulate a search for modern-day allegories and narratives. This search for an alternative narrative is hardly surprising in the midst of so much rhetoric in the popular media about security, threat and embattlement. Among Doig's works are two small paintings of vivid blue demons, the true stuff of childhood fairytales, one horned, the other wearing a death's head. They are emerging from a dark forest and stare menacingly out at us. The effect is slightly comic, in that it is such an oblique iconography, but it is nonetheless chilling and no less so for the small scale of the paintings. We cannot be certain whether the figures in Daniel Richter's tiny paintings are alive or dead. A young woman lies in a forest clearing. Young trees, their slender red trunks snaking upward, direct the viewer's eye in a cleverly composed painting. There is no sign that she is dead apart from her stillness, and it seems more likely that she is deep in contemplation, absorbed in an interior world but lying prone in the living forest. In another piece a comic-looking character kneels with its head to the ground, arms by its side, transfixed by a dead bird. Death again is under scrutiny. Nature is also very prominent in other ways in this show. Kai Althoff's beautifully simple, spray-painted bird-and-flower motifs bleed from under the stencils through which they appear to have been sprayed. Each uniform shape acquires a kitsch individuality by virtue of its imperfection. The immediacy of their application and the confidence with which these motifs have been rendered on the fine opaque ground speak volumes about the power of paint.
This work contrasts strongly with the thick, dead impasto of The yellow, the pink, brown and green by Tal R. A flock of black, bird-like shapes clutters the surface which is contained by a roughly painted frame, the outside edges of which carry the colours of the title. The practice of painting is not without its demons either, and here we see work which seems more preoccupied with its own materiality than most of the other work on display. There is a sense of containment and limitation at work here and in the large, roughly painted installation that dominates the main space as one looks down at the entire show. The loosely painted exterior of this boxed environment, under which one can peer inside, disguises an entirely white interior. The confusion of painted surfaces hides nothing but the silence of white and perhaps even clarity. Is this what we search for when we retreat to our 'hut'? Positioned directly in front of this installation are Therapie #50 and #51 by Cosima von Bonin. These are giant toadstools, straight out of the imagination or a fairytale pantomime. One of them stands at six foot, and both are covered in bland, neutral-coloured corduroy. One is brought to mind of the hallucinatory properties of certain mushrooms and the escape this implies from prescribed reality.
The climate of fear permeates Eve of destruction #5 by Avner Ben Gal. A shadowy grey figure stares at us from a grey hallway. There is a tight, cinematic quality to this loosely painted work. The protagonist looks helpless while staring out from the bare dwelling, creating a drama of uncertainty and, in the end perhaps, inevitability. There is a sadness to every aspect of Verne Dawson's Single family house . This is a small, modest painting that resembles a slightly elaborate child's drawing. The sky does not meet the edges of the canvas and the mark [?] from the front door into the yard is defined by a smudge of paint, perhaps from the end of a finger. The sky may be blue but the oppressive and awkward lines of the misshapen house have turned it into a less-than-welcoming haven. It is a recurring conceit that the present is more dangerous than the past and that the world is accelerating towards its own destruction. However, the imagery being employed in this exhibition draws upon the most effective of iconography, the staple of western myth and folklore for centuries. Chris Ofili's large piece, Cherchez la femme: Calypso and Odysseus , is a kitsch rendering of temptation mythology in midnight blues and silver. Odysseus remained imprisoned on the isle of Ogygia for refusing Calypso's offer of love and immortality. He pined for the world of man with all its troubles and for Ithaca and his wife Penelope. Odysseus could not abandon the world he had known even if it was fraught with danger. But the rendering of the temptation of Odysseus is ominous here. A black, moustachioed figure pulls back the curtain on a curvaceous reclining woman eating grapes. A cobra lurks in the lower left-hand corner, perhaps about to strike the transfixed man.
Royal Art Lodge have included twelve mini-narratives. They are small-scale panels, the smallest pieces in the show, which employ a quasi-cartoon style verging on the naïve. In one piece another red demon blows a horn in a field dotted with flowers. Tiny hooded figures emerge from the horn, and it is hard to imagine such a childlike scene as having any menace. The therapeutic power of music is described in Music is healing . A textbook-style illustration shows a xylophone being played, each of its keys a different colour. In another reference to music, three boys literally 'play' on a piano, climbing on top of it and behind it. And in another piece a woman is engrossed in the spectacle of a magpie flying above her. The magpie appears to be radiating light.
It is unusual to see such interconnected narratives, whether intentional or not, in a group exhibition. More unusual again to see such unself-conscious painting. That is not to say that the artists here are not aware of the languages they are using, but that they have transcended this stagnant self-reflexivity. Painting is, by and large, a solitary activity and as such it has been inclined toward a defensive stance, a bunker mentality perhaps. The most effective work in this show does not romanticise but simply presents us with a more complex image of our inner selves. Robbie O'Halloran is an artist based in Waterford. Huts , Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, 23 October - 1 December 2004
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