February 2016
The Sound STC•Vol.2 Issue 02
Action & Reaction
By Bart Gazzola
The side lounge area at Rodman Hall Arts
Centre is somewhat of a moribund space (the
recent Deck The Halls gala challenged this with
silvery wallpaper and disco balls). This is something that the current exhibition combats in a
unique way, with bright yellow “slabs” and arrangements of artworks that provide splashes
and spots of vitality. But, oddly for a (theoretically) visual space, its the words and phrases
scattered about the room that enliven it the
most. Visual Appropriations and Rewritings has
been on display there since January 12.
Asta McCann’s poetic declaration that “Our
inert gaze is detatched yet intrusive” could be
easily applied to Nicola Ciaramella’s Untitled
(Abstract Taxonomy), with petite doll arms
and the vaguely geographical fragment atop
a hard edged diagonal of vibrant flatness.
“We taste the ink of black and white and see
the sound of the past, to be”: these words of
Anjelika French’s mesh nicely with Melanie
Prentice’s Untitled (Nurture), with its transparencies and flat play on monochromes. But
French’s words hang on the wall under Faith
Brown’s amorphic wintry purple blue washes,
all tiny rectangulars with fine white torn borders. You’re invited to mix and match the
words as you move around the space, as befits
an exploration of what appropriation / rewriting can mean, or be. Not all the (very strong)
writing is so literal. “The nuclear family is as
nuclear a bomb as the American dr X[x