Daphne Wright: Emotional Archaeology

 

 

 

Arnolfini, Bristol.

 

Walking through the doors of the exhibition, I knew that I would see a horse on it's back as this was the image used to promote the event. What I didn't expect, was the finite amount of detail in the casting, the life like quality of it's 'skin' and the sombre atmosphere of the work.

The room seemed empty, the white swallowing up the space around the melancholy animals who were frozen in time. We walked around inspecting the life sized sculptures which were cast in marble dust and resin, these beautiful and lonely forms stranded in space and disconnected from their natural environment.  

The medium was evocative and added intensity to the work; the seemingly heavyweight appearance of marble felt like a physical weight for the viewer to carry and moving between each piece, you begin to understand the fraught and desensitised relationship we have with animals.

 

'Domestic Shrubbery' (1994) was a constructed room of plaster in a decorative wallpaper style whilst sound played from speakers. The ornate floral design was repeated all over the room which became an overpowering hub of confusion and disconnectedness, and the sound of a woman's voice imitating a cuckoos call was unsettling in this situation. Upon closer inspection, some hearts had been incorporated into the delicate design and it brought to mind the saying 'Home is where the heart is' which asks questions about our identity in society and how we feel we belong in certain places.  

 

A room that left me feeling very uneasy and slightly nauseous (possibly from a caffeine rush) was Gallery two, where a kitchen table replica was in the centre with two young boys (sculpted from Jesmonite) positioned on it. The frailty conveyed through the medium was unsettling and they felt much too life like to be that static. In the background, the voice of a young child could be heard (the screen was in the corner) saying Adult phrases which emphasized the vulnerability of the children even more.

The exhibition was beautifully curated and in a way that it allowed the viewer to consider what was being shown. The work was simple, elegant and arresting and left me thinking about relationships with the space and people around us as well as the way in which she used the materials. You were able to see the time it took for her to create each piece, it was evident in each mark and notch in the 'marble' and the durational aspect of it added to it's beauty.