So, that's it, shows over and I remove my work from the gallery this weekend, but I realise I've not posted any photos of it on-line yet! Here's the prliminaries, there will be more on
my web-site shortly...
The exhibition handout (co-written with
Heather Jones) had this to say:
In Not Holding the String, Matthew James Kay collects together a number of new objects for thought; sculptures, drawings and animations inspired by mistake-making, grace, doubt and faith in everyday life, which work together to talk about fear, expectations, uncertainty and hope.
The works on show all appear to be on a collective downer. A little gold tree full of dead bees (Here we Come!) is a monument to finality, standing unmonumentally on a fruit crate – “it happens” say the arrived. The newest piece in the show is an animation of what looks like a man on a tight rope. Balancing for eternity, not moving forward but not falling off, Frighteningly Close to Your Open Arms speaks of hope unaccepted. Drawn from the perspective of looking down at one’s own feet it could say something along the lines of “walk, you are closer than you think.”
In Stand Still a Moment
the protagonists stand face to face, or front to back, one shining her light into the other’s ‘head’ to reveal what appears to be a map of labyrinthine tunnels. Similar maps, numbered variations of Negotiating the Tangle
, are hung on the walls standing in as cryptic keys to understanding the work. Inspired by the experience of being lost in an underground station, these drawings depict the external appearance of stations as imagined from inside. This can be a metaphor for the whole of life, the process of negotiating the tangle – there’s never any real enlightenment, just doubt-hampered hunches and faith.
The artworks in Not Holding the String stand as markers in the artist’s ongoing exploration of the domestic adventure as a place of frustration. They inhabit a transient place where personal and circumstantial transformations occur in wrestling with the desire for real adventure, balancing our need for contentment and joy with the reality of dissatisfaction and doubt.
That said, my favourite part of the exhibition is in fact... my home-made cable clips:
So I've had to bring it inside for now, we'll see how it gets on.
The works on show all appear to be on a collective downer. A little gold tree full of dead bees (Here we Come!) is a monument to finality, standing unmonumentally on a fruit crate – “it happens” say the arrived. The newest piece in the show is an animation of what looks like a man on a tight rope. Balancing for eternity, not moving forward but not falling off, Frighteningly Close to Your Open Arms speaks of hope unaccepted. Drawn from the perspective of looking down at one’s own feet it could say something along the lines of “walk, you are closer than you think.”
In Stand Still a Moment the protagonists stand face to face, or front to back, one shining her light into the other’s ‘head’ to reveal what appears to be a map of labyrinthine tunnels. Similar maps, numbered variations of Negotiating the Tangle, are hung on the walls standing in as cryptic keys to understanding the work. Inspired by the experience of being lost in an underground station, these drawings depict the external appearance of stations as imagined from inside. This can be a metaphor for the whole of life, the process of negotiating the tangle – there’s never any real enlightenment, just doubt-hampered hunches and faith.
