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| 'the diviner' 2018 |
In every sense of the word (and for reasons that will
also hopefully become clear) Helen Sear’s exhibition which opened last Friday
at Hestercombe Gallery, is divine. Least alone because the show opens with her
most recent photographic work, titled ‘The Diviner’ (2018) spectacularly displayed on the gallery’s nineteenth century staircase [pictured]. An epically-sized series of three prints of willow trees taken over
two years chronicled as their roots grew and dried with the rising and falling
of the water where they grew. Their roots adorned by the artist, with
flowers to denote their likeness to skirts; a fitting tribute, in the absence
of any actual period-dressed skirted ladies, to the grandeur of Hestercombe’s
ballroom-like setting. Many proms, in-fact my own having taken place here some
years ago (though I never recall myself or anyone else wearing anything that
quite matches the scale that Sear’s tree-skirts convey)! The trees divine water
through their roots and mirror-image both their workings above
as below, intentionally or not, allude an interesting insight into the dual-nature of Sear’s work
depicting her subject matter through multiple viewpoints, the known and the unknown, both here rendered
visible. Its subject matter, scale and situ within the gallery, along with its
use of colour and play of illusion through mirror-imagery really set the tone for
the other visually intriguing and intellectually beguiling works exhibited.
“Sear has always, it seems, been interested in looking with, looking
round and looking through as she is in looking at.”
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| 'stack' 2015 |
Sitting on the periphery between photography and fine art
the works on show in ‘prospect refuge’ are united in being influenced by Sear’s
interest in nature and our 'human/animal relationships within it'. The title of
the show influenced by a concept from natural history writer, Jay Appleton whose
concept of ‘prospect refuge’ states, ‘the perceived beauty of a landscape is
directly linked to human survival’. Personally speaking, I am unsure if the
images I see consciously trigger thoughts of survival, though I do find
many of the stills from Sear’s film-based pieces, with their strong use of
colour and focus on textures (a curtain, a net, light through trees) to be
beautiful in an aesthetic sense. Maybe much of what we know of 'survival' in relation to the natural landscape has been lost or is now only ingrained in our subconscious? I am unsure, but this psychological-edge to the work creates a double-take in how it is perceived by the viewer. The
film/sound piece ‘wahaha biota’ (2018) made for The Forestry Commission England
that shows the planting and processing of trees is an example of how Sear’s
work creates a sense of intrigue and beauty through green-filtered scenes of
meadows and dappled forests in contrast to the isolation and strange sounds
that also give these places an edge of being dark, primal and slightly
foreboding. Though the overall impression I get is that for what is mostly an exhibition using photography it is
surprising just how painterly, immersive and in some cases sculptural the images are.
The exhibition features photographic and film-based works
from 2015 onwards with the implied cross-over between sculpture and photography
being an idea that the artist herself acknowledges within one of the first pieces
you encounter in the gallery. Titled ‘Stack’, [pictured above] a pile of stacked
logs is displayed on a large scale, which in-turn is also physically sliced and stacked vertically as an image along the gallery wall forming a visual blockade that is physically felt as well as seen,
‘a meeting of photography and sculpture, or treating the photographic
image as sculptural,...’
In a visual-sense these logs are a series of cylinders piled onto one another, but it also raises feelings of deforestation, man's relationship with the forest, ideas of the homestead and stacking logs used for fires and so on. The doubling-up of the captured-moment of an image of
stacked logs versus the stacking of the physical image itself calls into
question the visual play between illusion and perception. A theme explored
across a number of Sear’s works from when she exhibited in the Welsh pavilion
in the Venice Biennale in 2015.
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| '...caetera fumus' 2015 |
One of several pieces from the Venice Biennale exhibited
at Hestercombe, titled ‘...caetera fumus’ reads almost like a transcription of
the original painting of St Sebastian [1490] it was inspired from by Andrea
Mantegna. Instead of a figure the landscape
becomes the protagonist, a bright yellow field in contrast to red
twigs become symbols for blooded arrows and a light-box becomes a modern-day
interpretation of creating a glaze in paint and almost celestial-like
luminosity associated with religious imagery. In the same room, the curation of
the quote, ‘Nihil nisi divinum stabile est. Caetera fumus’ [which translates as
‘Nothing is stable if not divine, the rest is smoke’] displayed, in my mind
rather wittily, above the fireplace and refers to the impermanence of all things. I am fortunate to have seen these works before in Venice where the context of this work was closely tied to the building it was shown in, however, I feel that the work has more autonomy in the context of Hestercombe away from the heat and saturation of art in Venice where it can be contemplated quietly and more fully than I allowed time for previously.
Colour and the reference to painting (as we have already
had with sculpture) are also present in another series of photographs called
‘brand 1’ and ‘brand 2’. You could almost take these images on first glance to
be paintings, stains or rubbings.
“My use of colour is also to do with a convergence of the synthetic and
the natural, using heightened colour to explore relationships between light and
pigment, painting and photography.”
I think they are a photograph of a marking on a tree, but
for me the uncertainty and place it fits between being photo and non-photo, is
it a documentation of a moment in time or is it merely an image? Are these
colours natural or manmade, real or unreal? Are questions what make these and
many of Sear’s images worth revisiting.
“Her process of production often suggest a series of veils or membranes
that may be alternately piled up and peeled away...Rather than merely giving us
the world, or giving us to it, the photographic act is an overlayering , of
times and places, signs and sensations.”
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| 'the beginning and the end of things' 2015 |
The projection piece, shown on the floor ‘the beginning
and the end of things’ (2015) is another example where our sense of perception is skewed
and how Sear adapts her medium of film and photography to create something that
(like ‘Stack’) her audience almost 'physically' encounters rather than merely 'looks-at', as one tries to work out what this unfamiliar amoeba-like changing
coloured thing is. Her work has been linked to ideas within Surrealism and I can
see why within this work particularly as it conveys an
ever-changing puddle within which the trees and sky are reflected but at the
same time are an illusion of the real-thing, an Alice in Wonderland-like portal to another world... It is real and unreal at the same time, uncanny,
slightly trippy and strange but oddly also more engaging because of those
things than had it been static or on the wall. Once again there is also something very painterly/impressionistic in its fluidity. It is not the only piece in the exhibition either where Sear combines new technology along with nature/natural images drones are used in the film piece, 'moments of capture' (2016).
There is more to be seen in this exhibition than I have referred to here in what is also worth noting is Sear's first solo show but second time exhibiting at Hestercombe, having shown work in 2015's 'Double Take'. Then as now, I feel that her use of colour, modes of display and references to painting/fine art is more exciting, inventive and engaging than I have felt about a lot of photography as a medium previously. It is great to have that perception challenged as it is also worth reiterating how great it is to see these works on my doorstep and I would encourage others to do the same.
Helen Sear’s 'prospect refuge hazard 2' is on at
Hestercombe Gallery until October 28th
Quotes sourced from: Drake, D (2015) Helen Sear: ...the rest is smoke, Ffotogallery Wales Limited: Cardiff
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