The Flatlands exhibition, at The Gallery in Stratford, shows the work by six young artists, Clive Caswell, Ben Cove, S Mark Gubb, Tony McCorry, Adele Prince and Furio Torracchi.
Artistic license
The works in the Flatlands show are very closely connected visually, but I had trouble linking them all thematically. Both the title and the show blurb declare a connection with flat (graphic style) and lands (landscape). The first is clearly evident, but the curator is asking the audience to have a very loose interpretation of lands or landscape.
Graphically strong
The collection is beautifully presented, as the graphic and bold cartoon styles lend themselves well to a crisp, eye-catching show. The images are flat, simple and built from areas of bold colour.
The power of perfection
This near-perfect style does have a disadvantage. It is all too easy to imagine browsing this collection in Habitat or a similar interior design shop. There is just so much style here, the works glide easily over the brain, with little to trouble the audience or engage thought.
Wheely animated
There was one striking and simple exception to this aesthetic ease. Ben Cove's mobile panels were comic in construction as well as style and couldn't help but raise a smile. His seven-foot panels were all precariously balanced on large trolley wheels, echoing the unstable scenes of near-disaster they depicted.
Go and see
In its exploration of our preoccupation with paring down, simplifying and reducing, I think the Flatlands exhibition sometimes falls into its own trap of conforming too well to aesthetic and thematic simplicity. However, the show is definitely worth seeing, as it teeters on the edge of some fascinating themes. |
