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| Bleached (2017) mixed media |
Carson’s influence is quite literally and immediately
present in a series of drawn book covers forensically represented and taken from
different versions of ‘The Sea Around Us’, each meticulously rendered and
observed so as to capture every wrinkle and fold from their wear and tear. My
own personal interests in all things book-related leads me to wonder if these
books all belong to Kovats or whether they were loaned, found or borrowed from
their original readers? They all look like books which have been read and
travelled, where have they been, how many people had read them, had the ideas
they contain affected someone’s life? Books like weathered skin show the
passing of time and age, a thought that I have never really previously given
much contemplation to until I thought about how drawing a book cover must be
like drawing a portrait, the book design itself may be mass produced but the
wear of the book is individual and something of a pleasing mystery in its uniqueness. I like the
idea that the physical object of the book itself can hold a relevance as much
as the ideas with which it contains. For
the purposes of this exhibition however, the temporal nature of these book
covers perhaps a reminder of the ever-changing sea itself, as Carson’s book
reiterates,
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| The Sea Around Us (nine spines) 2018, pencil on paper |
‘It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first
arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But
the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat
is rather to life itself.’ -Rachel Carson
Continuing with my book theme, in
2014 Kovats’ produced a book about drawing titled, ‘Drawing Water’ to accompany
an exhibition the she had at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. I never saw
this exhibition but found the book and remember how it reinforced my own
feelings about drawing can be a ‘way of thinking’ or a means in which to lose
oneself and ponder new ideas.
'I draw
to find my way out. Drawing fills the space when I'm not sure what I am doing.
It's my mechanism for map-making and my search engine, even when I don't
know what I am looking for.'-Tania Kovats
Therefore, one could argue what better way to understand
the sea or contemplate it than to draw it? A large installed drawing titled
‘Sea Mark (Prussian Blue)’ 2018 created via a series of blue watercolour dashes or
horizontal pools conjure comparisons to abstract puddles or the shapes of light
hitting the surface of the sea going out towards the horizon. It is no coincidence that the medium with which to draw is connected with water and only reinforces its connection to the sea it represents (a similar piece
was created in a solo show at Hestercombe in Taunton during 2014-15). Displayed
across a series of sheets pinned together on a wall being both a scaling-up
process and a compartmentalising of elements that make up the greater whole. It
is as if Kovats is saying that the sea is too vast to contemplate or depict in
its entirety so it must be broken down into a series of repeated shapes until
its scale can be installed rather than preconceived. It also puts the viewer directly into the work, making us contemplate our own situ and scale in relation to 'the sea' or something much bigger than ourselves.
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| Sea Mark (Prussian Blue) 2018, watercolour on paper |
Somewhat bias of me, I have so far only focused on the
drawings of what will strike many people as a very sculptural exhibition (debatably
the work ‘Sea Mark (Prussian Blue)’ is almost quite sculptural in its installation).
A series of vitrines titled, ‘Bleached’ 2017 containing ‘an imagined bleached coral reef’ represent a bleak and sterile
view of the impact humans have on the health of such habitats. Like a beautiful, yet
fragile petrified forest and a warning told in museum-form, conveys the message that these reefs
are a dying and precious ecosystem that must be protected lest they become
museum relics of the future. Part of me wonders if it is all too obvious in how
it is meant to be read and that this work leaves less to the imagination, but
then maybe it is more important that the message is clear? In a second room
adjacent to ‘Bleached’ two more sculptural works titled, ‘REEF’ 2018 are more
experimental. A bit like the premise of drawing as a way of ‘figuring out’
these hand-maquette sculptures made from concrete and neoprene (ironically the
same stuff used to make wetsuits) are prototypes for a ‘functional coral reef restoration structure’.
They are less polished and sort-of awkward if a little clumsy looking in comparison
to the vitrines but as consequence have more potential in what they could be interpreted as. Potential,
that could be believed as being a 'new imagined coral reef' or for those more sceptical, like me, at the very least something
that is more multi-faceted in its abstraction than its linear-ness in being
representational.
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| REEF (2018) concrete, neoprene |
The overriding ambition that the work Kovats makes intends to, ‘reflect
on our relationship with the sea, and encourage more connection and agency in
how we connect to the natural world’ is quite a bold statement. I do not know
if I personally feel a greater connection or understanding after seeing the
exhibition than I had previously, but discovering more about Rachel Carson is
certainly something I am keen to pursue, particularly how what
she wrote in the 50s still feeling very relevant today. Having seen other work
by Kovats previously at Hestercombe, I am excited by her methods and inventive enquiries into water, the ocean and creative processes as a means of
understanding and getting audiences to engage with work. I think ‘Troubled
Waters’ is just that, where it achieves is that it is intriguing and unusual enough to want to
contemplate but readable enough to be able to take away a sense of meaning from
it. Whilst the drawn elements are important, to me at least, in stopping the whole exhibition becoming too ‘cold’
and emotionally bleak, bringing back something of the human-hand and presence to make us connect to the work more.
The waters Kovats foretells may be troubled but there is hope too, perhaps, is we do not loose a sense of humanity.
Troubled Waters –
Tania Kovats is on at the Exeter Phoenix until 11th November 2018
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