Eleanor Wright: Brownfield

Eleanor Wright: Brownfield

13 February, 2009
by: Katuschka

Perhaps London in the dead of winter, seized by snow and pelted with rain, is not quite the best timing for an elaborate outdoor installation. I'm a critic who enjoys her home comforts - give me a nice cosy gallery, a little glass of wine and some top-notch art and I'm a happy bunny, so I'll admit I recoiled a little at the thought of standing outside, freezing to the extremities with my wine slowly being watered down by the same rain which is eroding London's statues. But the art critic's career is an intrepid and dangerous endeavour and occasionally we must brave snow, wind and possible immolation, in order to accurately describe whatever hunk of material someone has seen fit to erect in the least al-fresco country in the world.

Luckily, Eleanor Wright's new installation Brownfield is an intriguing elemental obelisk. It's situated near More London at the heart of the South Bank, with Tower Bridge and Norman Foster's 'Gherkin' providing an austere backdrop far more striking than any gallery wall. One would think that, being surrounded by such egotistical buildings, Wright's installation would be dwarfed into oblivion. But it holds its own and stands tall and elegant at ten metres high, capturing the eye with its quirky, reclaimed appearance.

In conjunction with the always surprising Beverley Knowles Fine Art, Wright has created the piece out of found objects such as timber floorboards, and cardboard for the four turret pieces. Found debris is a recurrent theme in her work: her last installation was created from scuffed, towering file cabinets. Unlike the filing cabinets, which are given a new meaning in a different setting, Brownfield's timber seems to belong wholly to the piece, organically merging with the other materials. Much like a werewolf or a rockery, natural elements are intended to transform and enhance the piece, and the sculpture creaks and rocks meditatively in the wind like the calming motion of a ship or raft. It kind of puts a modern spin on the Thames' golden age by acting as a surrogate Cutty Sark, situated just down-river.

There is also something of the Battersea Power Station about it, with its towers, murky, forgotten demeanour, and upside-down table stance. The piece speaks largely of London's rotting and unused monuments - the title itself referring to a patch of unused land by the River Thames - which add to the City's shabby charm and preserve the one thing England holds dearer than tea: historical tradition. It is this sense of identity and errant aesthetic amid the hotchpotch of glass, steel and grandeur which gives Brownfield its authenticity, and charm.

Brownfield is also a nice, if small-scale, example of art as a public arena, surprising the viewer like a tree in Oxford Street; calming them with its active movements; and activating their philosophical side, as all good art should. Perhaps it is not a piece to be actively sought, but rather encountered as one of London's fleeting surprises.

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