An installation
by Simeon Nelson
"The last extreme of littleness is sublime also, because division,
as well as addition, is infinite. Infinity fills the mind with that sort
of delightful horror which is the truest test of the sublime; and succession
and uniformity of parts, which constitute the artificial infinite, give
the effect of sublimity in architecture. But in regard to the sublime
in building, greatness of dimension is also requisite, though designs
which are vast only by their dimensions are always the sign of a common
and low imagination. No work of art can be great but as it deceives.
Edmund Burke
21
April – 8 May 2005
Open Saturday & Sunday 12-6
or by appointment
0207 247 1375
exhibitions@elastic.org.uk
A
claustrophobic interior forest of Jacobean-fret columns fills the small
front room of Elastic Residence. Laser cut from plywood they syncopate
the space into a dynamic maze, a flat-packed English Alhambra.
They increase in density as you move into the room till it is hard to
squeeze through. Dead Birch saplings begin to sprout in between them gradually
transforming the back of the room into a forest. A floor to ceiling trellis
and chicken wire barrier spans the space and blocks your passage to the
rear of the room. Peering through this screen reveals only a thick chiaroscuro
tangle of branches and brambles. Tattered shreds of net curtain fringe
its perimeter and from beyond it a furtive cracking of twigs can be heard.
This exhibition places highly ornate architectural elements within a ‘natural’
landscape – or is it the other way round?…this exhibition inverts an
unnatural landscape within a small room in a 1770’s Georgian house in
Whitechapel, East London. This inversion reflects a wider concern in Nelson’s
practice – a concern with the relationship between notions of the
sublime and the personal or the oppositional dualism of nature as variously
earthly paradise or dangerous wilderness.
Questions of historic authenticity and personal identity, connections
between nature and the way it has been constructed in art, the resonant
quotient of terror over beauty in the search for a perfect sublime and
many others fold into each other in this complex new installation by Simeon
Nelson.
A prominent Australian sculptor he has lived in London for four years
and you may find further information on his work at www.simeon-nelson.com
For further information please contact Joanna Callaghan on 079 309 1907
joannacallaghan@onetel.com