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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Sam Dargan & Samuel St Leger
Verdict: Irony and diseased nature
London - Rokeby - 1 June to 5 July 05
Art Exhibition - Tues,Wed,Fri 11-18 hr; Thur 11-20 hr; Sat 11-16 hr; Free
The exhibition is 46 paintings from 2 male artists in 4 rooms on 3 floors. Each gets one room dedicated, and share the other two. Titles and artists' names are omitted - they are not differentiated in the display.
The artists are reviewed separately below. Works are described starting from the front basement and going back upstairs:
SAM DURGAN
(Front Basement - A Social History Of The British Isles And Other Issues; Time Wounds All Heals) 6 drawings in black biro. A man in Nike pullover and trainers paints marching posters: Anarchy is Not Terror, International Socialism Now, Neither Washington nor Brussels, Stand Up to American Imperialism; next to a twee shed, bird house, stone fountain and suburban fence - a straight-faced satire on middle-class activism rendered in busily-hatched biro line.
A man walks along the back of houses. A man enters an overgrown cemetery; a gravestone reads 'Only Sleeping'; it's desolation, loneliness personified; it evokes an imaginary sound-and-lyric-track by Randy Newman at his most despairing. A man walks bored past prison wall sloganed with 'Stuart Christie is a god'; there's a church round the corner; a Tesco bag, neatly tied, rubbish on the pavement; a man deep in thought carries a bag. A parked Fiesta, the road sloganed 'parks not roads'; a man carries a bag.
(Main Basement - Life's So Hard (Boo Hoo-Hoo), 2 paintings in colour): A man lies drunk on a pavement, his arm bandaged; two men wait, perhaps ill or drunk, perhaps in a doctor's surgery.
(Ground Floor): Impromptu Resignation Speech, 2005 - What looks like a government office, with 'You can shove your fucking job right up your arse' smeared on the wall; a tin of black gloss tipped over; a poster on the wall 'Success is a state of mind' - the contrast of slogans and reality (and funny).
The Day The Living Outnumbered The Dead, 2005 - A series of 15 small (less than A4) paintings hung in a horizontal line at head height, left to right: A man walks through mist along sand, or a promenade; 3 men in suits dig jewellery from the ground as if from a grave; a broken suitcase spills its contents next to a wall; children run in all directions near a viaduct; a blindfolded man with bandaged leg is on a shingle beach with factory chimneys behind (like the opening scenes of Young Adam); 3 men are bound with hoods on, saying 'Kick Me', 'Cunt', and a smiley-face drawing; a sniper's lair in an upstairs room with open window - packing cases, gun, spent cartridges, McDonald's bag & shake, waste paper; a dosser's paper sheets in a shed at night; a car smeared 'Judas traitor', McDonald's shake on the bonnet; a firebomb envelops McDonald's; sleazy bedsit, bed, money, blood, Tesco bag, McDonald's shake; a man lies in waste bags, a Lidl bag over his head - may be dead - litter of Tesco bags; snow on grass under a sickle moon; sheet on floor over probably a body - bucket, sponge suggest cleaning up of blood; 2 human heads on poles with ID cards, against clouds and the sky. All are in oil paint on board with gloss varnish.
Sam Durgan's work in this exhibition is dark; it ripples with humour. The despair and loneliness of life are sharply evoked, and the black edges of the mind explored. Linking themes to the biro drawings and some of the other works include the solitary and introspective observer; the detail of bag-carrying - perhaps signifying a self-contained and portable world; the contrast and occasional irony of slogans to the action; desolation; the feeling of all being overgrown and forgotten; the minutae of poverty. The Day The Living Outnumbered The Dead series have an illustrative flavour - a narrative not clear but floating in the back of the mind. There's a comic-book feel, like a diseased Tin-Tin (and he'd be carrying Snowy's severed head in a Tesco bag).
SAMUEL ST LEGER
(Main Basement - 5 works - approx sizes are to differentiate paintings - titles given at end - works are described clockwise round room starting next to stair): (120 x 100) - A brooding pink landscape of hacked boulders and pit-prop staves evokes a World War 1 dugout. A similar smaller work in green, with dark foreground, upright fence staves. (40 x 30) - Fragments of landscape and broken buildings in straw and blue colours. (40 x 20) - Two matching works show blasted heaths in midnight blue. (100 x 90) - A seascape or rancid mere with broken gray dike stone wall in foreground.
(Mezzanine - Excerpts from The Heroes of Telemark, black and white): The 8 works listed are similar in format - each a page of 5 frames assembled in comic-book format. The medium is pen and black ink, with meticulous drafting. Themes include primeval forests; wood, nails; wood fence-stanchions and wire; grilled wire fences crossing water; secret enclosures; and acute, quirky detail - eg a penknife with a decorative shield on its case.
(Ground Floor - 8 works - approx sizes are to differentiate paintings - titles given at end (where known they are included here) - works are described clockwise round room starting next to stair down to mezzanine):
(60 x 54) - A tree with lichen, on grass surrounded by sordid water, colours light browns. (60 x 54) - The entrance to a pit or dugout, covered in timber, surrounding overgrown. Pathfinders, 2005 (120 x 100) - Landscape with set of trees in electric yellow - perhaps it's a ghastly sunlight; there's a broken wooded structure.
Greycap, 2005 (120 x 100) - A box is caught in spiked vegetation, perhaps weeds in water, or tree-tops. (60 x 54) - Leafless branches clasp something dead in silhouette. Codes, 2005 (60 x 54) - Primordial knarled trees, fragments of paper, slim and plain leafless trees. ULTRA, 2005 (120 x 100) - A treetop carpet in military greens; the almost Constructivist rods of, perhaps, water and gas from a waterfall, make a bold flash; the painting is by the front window. (Behind the reception desk): Landfall, 2005 (25 x 15) - A blue-ish enclosed stagnant pond in leafless trees.
Samuel St Leger's technique is the use of acrylic paint on 8 or 9 separately-painted layers of masking tape, mounted on board. The layers are cut away to produce the final images and colours, leaving a slightly 3D surface.
Themes include optically contradictory landscapes - geometrically unlikely, like a green Escher; absence of people; the juxtaposition of decaying human objects - fences, props, walls, boxes, huts - and a perverted nature working its own mischief. At first glance the landscapes seem pre-human with human objects out of place. At second, there's the feeling that they represent a post-human era, with the hidden presence of malevolent intelligence
THE EXHIBITION
The present exhibition carries a strong impact from two completely different artists. Hanging them mixed together doesn't seem to have a point, as there's no obvious link in their approach. It does make it confusing to take in their work individually. The lack of titles by the works, or on a sheet on the wall, takes away a useful point of reference for the viewer (and perhaps buyer) - the artists may know their works as individually as their children, the viewers don't. It's a shame in particular that titles aren't included at or near Sam Dargan's work, as the artist seems to use them to add a further level of irony.
The exhibition is at the new Rokeby Gallery which opened off Tottenham Court Road on 19 April 05. The gallery looks set to be a venue for exciting art and is a bright and gorgeously-designed set of different spaces.
CREDITS
List of Works: (dimensions are estimates, in cm): Sam Dargan: Front Basement: A Social History Of The British Isles And Other Issues (Series of 3, 60 x 40); Time Wounds All Heals (Series of 3, 60 x 40). (Main Basement): Life's So Hard (Boo Hoo-Hoo) (25 x 30). (Ground Floor): The Day The Living Outnumbered The Dead, 2005 (Series of 15, 18 x 25). Impromptu Resignation Speech, 2005 (30 x 20). Samuel St Leger: Main Basement: Rhubarb, 2005. Sttoge, 2005.
The Rout, 2004. Untitled, 2005. Untitled, 2005. Untitled, 2005. Mezzanine: Excerpts from The Heroes of Telemark (Series of 8). Ground Floor: Codes, 2005 (60 x 54). Greycap, 2005 (120 x 100). Pathfinders, 2005 (120 x 100). Landfall, 2005 (25 x 15). Untitled, 2005 (60 x 54). Vacksine, 2005 (60 x 54). Weasel, 2005 (60 x 54). ULTRA, 2005 (120 x 100).
Credits: Artists: (alpha order): Sam Dargan. Samuel St Leger. Gallery: Artistic Directors - Beth Greenacre. Edward Greenacre.
END
John Park
reviewed Tuesday 7 June 05 / Rokeby Gallery
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
