Red Wire Gallery
This is the ninth exhibition to be held at the relatively new Red Wire gallery, located in the historic Carlisle Building on Victoria Street. It was first utilised as artist studios in 2005 and the exhibition space, named after the fire alarm cable that runs around its otherwise white walls, opened in 2006.
This show is the result of an open submission process and the relatively small gallery is crammed with the selected pieces. It is an eclectic mix of work from a range of young artists, encompassing everything from photography to sculpture and even a mechanical contraption.
One of the stand-out works is ‘Xerox F**k’ by Ania Bas and Adam James. This piece is a collage of overlapping photocopied body parts, with more images projected over it in green. The featured bodies appear almost trapped under water or in plastic. With squeezed-shut eyes, squashed flesh and string-like hair, their features are reduced to basic shapes and tones. An original and unusual form of bodily representation
‘Barbi Hystricula’ by Patrick Semple is a peculiar artwork constructed from bone, hair and other materials. Resembling both an artefact from an archaeological dig and something alien from a science-fiction film, it is a creepy and fascinating piece.
A more conventional work of note is Helen Blejerman’s picture depicting an upside-down suburban neighbourhood, part of her ‘Inversions’ series. The piece really brings out the basic forms and shapes that make up these familiar structures in a visually arresting way.
This is an excellent and eclectic exhibition. The pieces are perhaps a little too closely grouped in the small and sometimes overlap on each other, but this has at least allowed a good cross-section of new artistic works to be displayed when so many independent galleries seem to be closing in the city centre.
By Kenn Taylor
Kenn Taylor 