Silo and Flux at Beverley Knowles

Silo and Flux at Beverley Knowles

19 November, 2008
by: Katuschka

Traditionally, a gallery tries to seduce investors and aficionados alike with open spaces, clean white walls and a clear passageway from the door to the inside – perhaps someone should tell the proprietors of Beverley Knowles Fine Art this, as their new exhibition Silo and Flux sees the entrance obstructed by artist Eleanor Wright's installation piece.  Wright has piled filing cabinets in a precarious and narrow labyrinth designed to challenge the entrant and force viewers to interact with the piece, implementing the constructivist dadaism of artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys.  With this in mind, the grey cabinets are as Soviet as a Czech suburb, in muted grey towers with an accent of Communist red. 

Entering the gallery is similar to dodging the over-friendly greeters at the Disney Store or the snobby Amazonian guarding the doors of Prada, thereby addressing the elitism of art galleries and how an environment can be designed to intimidate.  Wright's installation represents the silo of the title both in the potential of what is stored inside the filing cabinets and in the sense of information management, where the meaning is both suggested and hidden at the same time.  Displaying the work in this way is a bold move, especially to put the more commercial work behind the piece, which may prove to be a little too effective, if future viewers arrive and wonder if they are in the right place.  Behind the cabinets is an erratic plaster ‘landscape’, which is a delicate contrast to the main piece.  Scaled-down organic landscapes are a theme in Wright’s work, however I felt the meringue on a board floor piece detracted from a strong concept, by suggesting a lightness and openness beyond the cabinets, softening the effective sensation of unease.
 
Beverley Knowles Gallery is no stranger to doorway-barring, avante garde performance pieces; in a previous show They Paved Paradise the gallery's doors were obscured by an enormous skirt train designed to interrupt a sleeping performer, so clearly the gallery likes it's viewers to be alert and engaged with their critical hackles tingling.  Despite no specific link between the artists' work, they complement each other.  There is a sense that once you have penetrated Eleanor Brown's officious barrier, Sneh Mehta's biologically inspired paintings draw you into an internal world, as if watching through an endoscope or being initiated into an intimate and mystical understanding.  Mehta's paintings extricate patterns from within the body and re-imagine them in a theoretical sense, creating a dialogue within the inner and outer body.  Her brightly coloured digital prints turn the alien blooms of our growth hormones and DNA into surreal landscapes, which look like a medical text book designed by Kandinsky.  DNA Boogie Woogie sees writhing strands of genetic make-up unfurling over vibrant effluvia like a microscope slide dripping with dye.  Her paintings exude both kinetic energy and a detached, medical stasis in the blank asexual faces which emerge through the graffitti of genes and bacteria.
 
Mehta’s paintings are less edgy and conceptual than Wright’s piece, however mixing commercial work with an installation piece adds a little to each, even if neither really needs embellishment.  Mehta’s work makes Wright’s seem more accessible and Wright’s installation makes Mehta’s work appear more profound. 
 
Silo and Flux needs to be stumbled upon and experienced as a little adventure; because Wright’s installation reaches its full potential when it is approached unawares.  Having said this, the exhibition is a worthwhile curio in any case, with pieces which may not sit easily with all viewers, but provoke discussion nonetheless.  Another rookie move from the all female gallery, with hopefully more challenging offerings in future, short of cementing the entrance shut of course.  

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