Mark Garry - Another Place
Mark Garry doesn't realize it, but he quite possibly saved my life the other day. Along with the lives of everyone else in the social welfare office I was considering torching. Not that I'm a fan of arson, or the accompanying murder. But I just hate January, yno? And queuing in social welfare offices. Prison, I reasoned, wouldn't be so bad. Those orange jumpsuits would add a touch of colour, and my sex life, if we're frank, would improve.
But all that has been neatly avoided, as I later wandered down to the Kerlin gallery and got cheered up no end. Garry's solo show, Another Place, is quite simply the best antidote to January blues that I've yet to encounter. A mixed exhibition, what's on show ranges from small photographic etchings to large-scale sculptural installations, though through the mixed media, he places an emphasis on the potential of his materials. With a light touch, Garry succeeds in subverting the viewer's preconceptions of these substances, with results that push the imaginative limits. With And Time and I Once Went There, wood and metal become delicate, almost wind-borne things, that seem ready to flutter away from their roots in the gallery walls.
Indeed, Garry describes his process as one tilting at the transcendental, in an effort to understand the intimacies of the imaginative process, and chart a dialogue between head and hand. As this dialogue resonates, he has transformed the Kerlin space with subtle, emphatic colour, the highlight of which is surely the largesse Folds. An arrangement of taut thread that immediately grabs your attention, and takes over half the gallery in the process, Folds is like a bouncing, kung fu rainbow, vaulting through the upper space before shattering on a far wall. Its appreciation commands movement, edging you beneath its sharp corners where you find the vitality inherent in its still frame. The near ethereal pigment of the threads blinks and shifts in these short movements, with a colour that seems to shimmer into existence as you stroll around it. It expertly underlines Garry's central concept of the nebulous made into a physical, utterly uplifting reality, and also reminds you perhaps inadvertently, that warmer times are just around the corner.
Mark Garry's Another Place runs at the Kerlin Gallery until 13th February.
Words: Padraig Moran
Mark Garry doesn't realize it, but he quite possibly saved my life the other day. Along with the lives of everyone else in the social welfare office I was considering torching. Not that I'm a fan of arson, or the accompanying murder. But I just hate January, yno? And queuing in social welfare offices. Prison, I reasoned, wouldn't be so bad. Those orange jumpsuits would add a touch of colour, and my sex life, if we're frank, would improve.
But all that has been neatly avoided, as I later wandered down to the Kerlin gallery and got cheered up no end. Garry's solo show, Another Place, is quite simply the best antidote to January blues that I've yet to encounter. A mixed exhibition, what's on show ranges from small photographic etchings to large-scale sculptural installations, though through the mixed media, he places an emphasis on the potential of his materials. With a light touch, Garry succeeds in subverting the viewer's preconceptions of these substances, with results that push the imaginative limits. With And Time and I Once Went There, wood and metal become delicate, almost wind-borne things, that seem ready to flutter away from their roots in the gallery walls.
Indeed, Garry describes his process as one tilting at the transcendental, in an effort to understand the intimacies of the imaginative process, and chart a dialogue between head and hand. As this dialogue resonates, he has transformed the Kerlin space with subtle, emphatic colour, the highlight of which is surely the largesse Folds. An arrangement of taut thread that immediately grabs your attention, and takes over half the gallery in the process, Folds is like a bouncing, kung fu rainbow, vaulting through the upper space before shattering on a far wall. Its appreciation commands movement, edging you beneath its sharp corners where you find the vitality inherent in its still frame. The near ethereal pigment of the threads blinks and shifts in these short movements, with a colour that seems to shimmer into existence as you stroll around it. It expertly underlines Garry's central concept of the nebulous made into a physical, utterly uplifting reality, and also reminds you perhaps inadvertently, that warmer times are just around the corner.
Mark Garry's Another Place runs at the Kerlin Gallery until 13th February.
Words: Padraig Moran
Venue Details
Venue: Kerlin Gallery
Website: http://www.kerlin.ie/
Phone: 353 1 670 9093
Fax: 353 1 670 9096
Email: gallery@kerlin.ie
Location
Anne's Lane, South Anne Street, Dublin 2
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