About Balance & Occupation
October 9 - November 10, 2018
Walking into Andrew Drummond's About Balance & Occupation is to be immersed in an installation both physical and poetic. Of the exhibition, Drummond has said only that it "explores the precariousness of our occupation of the natural world". And that once in the show, people are free to touch, to make the works move.
One touches wood - poplar stripped of its bark and dried to an almost bone-like white. Two long logs pivot in steel gimbals, their slow motion akin to see-saws moving up and down. They span the full width of the gallery. This is serious play. Smaller limbs hover or float in space, tethered high and similarly balanced like lean delicate birds in flight. They reach to gently touch, caress and scuff quivers of black swan feathers which are strategically placed in wait. There is a wistful beauty here, along with a certain magic. Dichotomies abound. Materials are hard and soft, still yet moving, and spare but richly elegant. This is sculpture of pared back simplicity that is utterly grand in effect. We see balancing rods, and realize every day that our relationship to self, others and the world negotiates exactly this existential (dis)equilibrium.
The scale of occupation in the front gallery becomes much more intimate in the space behind. Under small glass domes like little terrariums, Drummond places amongst other things, sphagnum moss, slate, and half spheres lined with gold leaf, in arrangements part-bonsai and quasi-scientific. Amber LED's glow ember-like from within. These could be almost little crucibles of creation. But the careful embossing of slate and serpentine, along with a rigorous variety of viewpoint and composition, suggest an exploration of place, a search for knowledge - for transformation even - that might just benefit our state of being. I'm certainly happy to hope so. Thanks Andrew.
JS
List of works
Pivoting limb with homed quiver, 2018
wood (poplar and macrocarpa), cotton wool, stainless steel, black swan feathers
series of 2
Balancing limb with quiver, standing, 2017 - 18
wood (poplar and macrocarpa), cotton wool, stainless steel, black swan feathers
1 - 4 of a series of 6
Balancing limb with quiver, homed, 2017 - 18
wood (poplar and macrocarpa), cotton wool, stainless steel, black swan feathers
series of 3
A place for occupation, 2018
wax, sphagnum moss, wood, gold leaf, slate, serpentine, glass, LED lights
300 x 270 x 180mm, 1 - 18
Installing...
