Samantha Donnelly: Sampling Imagery
Clare Nadal writes
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| Zabludowilz Addition, 2011. Image courtesy the Artist and Ceri Hand Gallery. |
We are now busy installing in preparation for Samantha
Donnelly’s solo exhibition Sampler which
opens on Friday evening. Artistic Programmer David Knowles and I went to visit
Sam in her studio last month to see what she had got planned for the
exhibition.
For an artist so acutely in tune with our relationships to
modern life and the impacts of advertising and consumerism on society, Sam’s
studio location in rural Mosley, beside the Pennine moors, came as something of
a surprise. Finally, after several wrong turns and confusion from sat nav, we
reached the studio spaces housed within a grim imposing – and very cold – ex
Lancashire mill.
Though a tiny studio space, I was immediately struck by the
wealth of material and imagery in Sam’s studio. Critical art books rubbed
against fragments of sculptures, with collage and photographic material spread
around. This notion of archiving, collecting and the found object is key to Sam’s
practice as her sculptural work combines ephemera with personal trinkets such
as tassels, beads and hair. In this way her sculptures form fragile, seemingly
temporal structures – often remade/reassembled for each new setting - that seem
to reference our own modern throwaway culture.
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| Long Player Lasting Finish, 2013. Image courtesy of the Artist and Ceri Hand Gallery. |
Forming a key focal point in her studio was a cyanotype photographic
series from images Sam captured whilst travelling in Japan. Quoting the camera
and the act of looking, this series speaks of what it is to see and be seen in
modern day life. The example of the Chinese and Japanese worship of material
culture asks us to consider the new ‘religion’ of the commercial, of idolatry
and shrines.
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| Studio Image 1 |
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| Studio Image 2 |
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| Studio Image 3 |
For her show at South Square, Sam has been very keen to
consider the architecture and heritage of the gallery space, specifically its domestic
and landscape associations, and the industrial and textile heritage of the
Bradford region. The show’s very title ‘Sampler’
references this directly, whilst also highlighting Sam’s eclectic and
experimental practice that brings together a multitude of cultural references
to bombard the viewer. With shifts in
scale and direct intervention with the gallery space (including applying
watercolour paint direct to the gallery wall!), the intimate sculptural works
will form an installation in dialogue with itself, activating the space around
it.
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| Install Image 1. Courtesy of the Artist. |
In referencing the consumerist, Sam’s work speaks of the
desired and the alluring – that which is so often humanised, associated with
female sexuality. In many of the works a guiding arm with a pointing finger, or
a beautiful outstretched leg asks us to come and look closer. Like all the
mythical male sailors, enticed by beautiful sirens, we cannot help but draw
closer. The meretricious, the idealised and the dreamlike combine together, yet
whether we should embrace or fear the material is left unanswered.
Sampler opens to the public on Saturday 5 April and runs until 25 May 2014.
