Damaged Collateral

Damaged Collateral:
Inner City Gothic
And the Suburban Sublime

George Bolster – Denzil Browne – Amanda Dunsmore
Fiona Larkin – James Lumsden – Sean Lynch
Theresa Nanigian – Ruth Rogers

Bird Flu, Binge Drinking, Anti – Social Behaviour, Suicide Bombers and Global Warming. Fear is Man’s best friend. Paranoia is on first name terms. ‘Damaged Collateral: Inner City Gothic and the Suburban Sublime’ the new exhibition at Context Galleries sheds light on our various demons. From the playful to the downright sinister Damaged Collateral explores the fear that haunts modern living and the failure of political and philosophical utopias. Theresa Nanigian explores the constantly shifting zone between stagnation and anarchy and spontaneous adaptability while George Bolster documents the insidious and sometimes blatant marketing of violence to children through toys and games. Ruth Rogers takes innocuous images from newspaper colour supplements and subverts them into carrying highly-charged messages using only the intervention of correction fluid and the newspaper's own main headline. Sean Lynch details crowd barriers, stacked for potential use at urban gatherings such as July 12 in Belfast, Columbus day in New York and St Patrick’s Day in Dublin. The visuality around these objects presents the clear agendas that we, as urban dwellers, must deal with. Amanda Dunsmore documents abandoned building complexes in Weimar, in Eastern Germany, constructed by the Nazis and appropriated by the Soviets, their decaying rooms holding more than remnants of ideologies. James Lumsden’s work is from into two distinct yet related series; Fascination aims to reflect the power of propaganda to manipulate, seduce and coerce - where fictions can be seen to become truths through constant repetition. In the paintings Revelation and Disclosure an illusion of light is highlighted as a fabrication by the exposure within the picture plane of the underlying material support. If the illusory light is seen as a metaphor for an unattainable utopian perfection, the revelation of the material reality beneath the painting acts as a reminder to question, to look beneath the surface of what is perceived. Fiona Larkin also questions the media she uses, this time photography in a series of three works which use elements of collage to disrupt the perfect surface of the photographs. Denzil Browne uses pin-hole camera techniques in a series of night time images, the long exposure time depopulating the works creating eerie atmospheric nightscapes filled with tension and the probability of trouble.

Works

Sean Lynch: Social Sculpture 1, 2 & 3 (2005)

Fiona Larkin: The Kindness of Strangers (2005)

George Bolster: Conditioned: Follow – Off to School – Distraction – Text – Playground (2003 A0 Lazerjet Print)

Ruth Rogers

Denzil Browne

Amanda Dunsmore: ‘Peripherie' 5 minute loop with separate CD audio
(1997 – 2004)

James Lumsden: Revelation; Fascination (Polyptych)

Theresa Nanigian – Threshold (2004)

27th October – 12th November 2005
Including
War of the WorldsA recreation of the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast
By the Orbit Theatre Company