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Indepth Arts News:
"Multistorey: Elise Ferguson, Anna Hutton, Mark Pearson, Chloe Steele"
2004-02-04 until 2004-03-21
Pump House Gallery
London, ,
UK United Kingdom
The unusual structure of the Pump House Gallery’s four-storey exhibition space provides the focus for this exhibition, Multistorey: Elise Ferguson, Anna Hutton, Mark Pearson, Chloe Steele,
the artworks presenting visual commentaries on the multi-layered architecture of the building in which they are temporarily housed.
Elise Ferguson’s intricate gouache paintings of patterned parquet flooring describe virtual expanses of architectural interiors, whilst her precariously balanced house-of-cards highlights the vulnerabilities of ambitious construction and the fragility of modern life. Anna Hutton’s site-specific artworks explore the transient spaces of buildings. Drawing over walls, floors and other surfaces with coloured adhesive tape, her complex installations realign our experience of existing built environments asking the viewer to consider even the most insignificant of spaces.
With the heroic energy and aspirational creativity of a dubious DIY enthusiast, Mark Pearson builds brutal physical structures that challenge the apparent limits of their craftsmanship. In contrast, Chloë Steele’s delicate drawings and simplified sculptures of modernist tower blocks both contradict and celebrate the vast scale of the actual buildings, whilst observing the formal subtleties of the architecture they represent.
The Pump House in Battersea Park was built in 1861 to feed the Victorian lake cascades from a well beneath the building. By the end of the Second World War, the pumping machinery had been stripped out and the roof had collapsed. English Heritage undertook essential repairs in 1985 and in 1991 Wandsworth Council Design Services arranged for the restoration of the external fabric and internal refurbishment. New floors and a steel staircase were inserted into the shell of the building.
Since its reopening after an award-winning transformation in 1992, the Pump House Gallery has presented a wide variety of exhibitions and events. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in profile with a developing programme of contemporary exhibitions representing the broad range of current arts practice.
IMAGE
Elise Ferguson
Cards on Parquet 2001
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