Lucy Tomlins – Pylon and Pier @ VITRINE

Location: VITRINE

March 30, 2017 - September 24, 2017

VITRINE is delighted to announce the second edition of SCULPTURE AT, which will be launched on 30 March 2017 with a new commission by British artist Lucy Tomlins.

The artist’s objects, installations and assemblages combine a range of traditional materials including stone, concrete and metals with contemporary materials including light, moving image and sound. Through a process of remaking and rearranging the ready-made objects of our society, Lucy’s artwork creates uncanny relationships between seemingly disparate materials and things in an attempt to make sense of her everyday, situated, social context.

Though not didactic, my work has often involved subtle social commentary, so I took this opportunity to consider the nature and function of the public square, as a space for the coming together of the community, a place with a function as a meeting place, and a location for democracy and power shifts.

Pylon and Pier takes the public square as the work’s starting point. Traditionally this is where statues of distinguished people are sited, usually placed there to reinforce notions of power or national prestige. Tomlins’ sculpture reverses this, however, presenting a statue of the Titan Atlas – not as in Greek mythology holding up the sky for eternity, but fallen from its plinth and, grasping the globe, lain on its side. The viewer’s gaze, which would normally be directed upwards in awe, now stares across on the felled colossus drained, the loss of his mythological strength underscored by the diminutive size of his body – he is only 1.4 metres in height, thus allowing the beholder a more intimate interaction with the work.

Until 24th September.

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