Peoples Republic of South Devon

Andrea Grigson (art review)

June 4th, 2008

A world within, Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street, Exeter, until June 10
- posted by Phil Ginsberg

The first thing that catches your eye when you enter the Exeter Phoenix these days is the array of wooden boxes in its galleries. Balanced gracefully on thin wooden legs, some low and small, some long, thin and at head height, they seem unremarkable at first – if perhaps a little enigmatic. It is not until you discover the tiny openings in their walls that you become truly intrigued – and then hooked. Soon you will be peeking into every one to discover the art inside.

This is “A World Within”, a new exhibition of the London-based Artist Andrea Gregson’s sculptural installations, on at the Phoenix until 10 June. It is the kind of show that draws you in slowly only to suddenly make the outside world disappear, and then finally leave you staggered and wondering at its hidden beauty. Each of the boxes contains an entire scene, a dream world or an interior. Some resemble miniature film or stage sets, complete with furniture, some locations from fairytales or science fiction stories. Uncannily, you wait for the characters to enter. In others, Andrea Gregson has meticulously layered paper cut outs to create an ethereal, ghostly environment. All of the boxes’ contents can only be observed through the tiny peepholes of their containers.

“A World Within” has been cleverly spread over three rooms. Apart from the boxes, there are also wall-mounted paper cut outs and drawings on display, including those Gregson prepared when she was short listed for the prestigious Jerwood Sculpture Prize.

The smallest of the gallery spaces at the Phoenix has been given over to the largest sculpture, entitled “Headspace”, which introduces one of the key themes of the show. About eight feet long but only a foot wide and high, it almost seems to hover on its slim wooden stilts. Light seems to be seeping out through the tiny portholes in its sides, yet it is only through larger openings at either end that we are able to see what Gregson has done to the inside. The contrast to its wooden shell couldn’t be more striking. The walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor-like space inside have been cushioned like a padded cell in glimmering, reflective white, which seems less like a pillowed surface than cold, pristine porcelain. On it lie many pieces of strange crockery: plates, bowls and other receptacles that are reminiscent of medical vessels. None of them are quite recognisable and often they are twisted a little out of shape. They have an organic quality, and while they curve into beautiful shapes, the effect is simultaneously almost unnerving.

Such ambiguity is often at play in “A World Within”. Many of the boxes’ interiors reference and explore the unspoken qualities of different kinds of objects and rooms. Thus a beautiful and wild forest made out of delicate white paper cut outs can be found to conceal strange creatures within it, or a bakery, with delicious fresh bread on its shelves, the horrors of an abattoir.

Yet this ambiguity exists at a wider level, too, as the installations engage not only with objects and rooms but with the humans who use and inhabit them. The miniature classroom Gregson has created for her work “Pandemonium” for instance only initially seems like the benevolent educational space it should be. At second glance it becomes clear that it is being used to teach more sinister subjects, and the work’s statement in relationship to the current global political situation is massively thought provoking.

The art in “A World Within” thus has the most subtle and tightly packed – a Freudian would say ‘condensed’ – psychological potential, which is nonetheless never overbearing. There is a unique artistic touch to the exhibition that makes it so very enjoyable to visit, a charm that means that Gregson’s work can be humorous and ironic as well as so deeply suggestive.

This charm is also fundamentally linked to the fact that we are lured to look into the boxes through their various (sometimes multiple) peepholes. Based on the travelling peep boxes that were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, Gregson’s sculptures manage to shut out the busy gallery around us and present the world within the box to our gaze in a strikingly immediate manner. There is a unique sense of wonder and excitement that pervades the installation as this simple feature yields all the more richly varied results.

So if you do happen to walk into the Phoenix anytime soon, let your eye be caught by “A World Within”.

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Entry Filed under: Arts