Material Rites
Hazard signs and strange organisms take to the walls at MOP.
Overview
Material Rites is a group show that fills MOP Projects with objects that seem to have pushed their way in from the wider world to perch in the gallery space. It's a mixed bag of works that seem to take their inspiration from mountains, organisms and its neighbouring den of construction.
The juxtaposition Sophie Clague and Tom Mason's work by the front door makes the space feel like a bit of a construction zone. A feeling not entirely out of place as the construction of the former brewery site finishes up across the road. Sophie Clague's origami'd hazard signs feel like a hive of building sites have escaped their bounds to push into the gallery space. They decorate the walls with triangular, orange geometries and flower-like, casual blossoming, seeming to flit between the two and three dimensional like some of the motive drawings in the film Mirrormask. Opposite, Tom Mason's chunks of stoneware gas cans complement the building site vibe nicely, staining the floor with white dust.
Lisa Sammut's for all the other elevations suspends a blue disc above a field of craggy mountain cutouts. Suspended on a pendulum from a balsa wood platform, the motion and dominant blue colour give a sense of endless, calm, cool days in the alpine sun. Two other moving alpine art pieces sit on the wall behind it. Nearby, Angela Welyczko's four photos are low key portraits of waiting rooms. Tiny details of motion, the washed out light and empty seats, endlessly staring, capture all the right interminable details of the boredom and importance at play in a doctor's office.
Jack Stahel keeps up his habit of taking the fantastic from nature, as strange creatures — bulbous and alert — emerge from the branches, wire and wood of their materials. Meanwhile, in Gilliam Lavery's Fuel, a loom is ready for action, but holds only a cloth with rows of long stitches.
MOP Projects is open Thursday to Sunday, 1-6pm. Image: still from Imaginary Exhibit 1 by Jack Stahel.
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