Moving Paintings

The Open Gallery

Open are showing a series of 38 works by artists Isabelle Inghilleri, Sanchita Islam and Hilary Lawson titled Rusted Concrete. This series portrays anonymous urban spaces that have taken on a life of their own, outwith the bounds of any intended master plan. The occasionally explored potential of these spaces as canvases is a deliberate link to the rest of the exhibition.

"As Milton first identified, Satan has all the best lines. In the city there is excitement alongside emptiness. These video paintings explore the city labyrinth, it's human contents, and their desires".
                                                                            Hilary Lawson,
                                                                           Open Gallery, 2011

The exhibition was shown in Bristol in the Square Gallery by appointment only. I rang up and booked an appointment to go down and see it in the Easter holidays. When I arrived I was really surprised to find that the 'Gallery' was actually a hotel. The videos were shown in the hotel bar. I was not expecting this and therefore felt slightly disappointed that it turned out to be nothing but a projection on the wall in the hotel bar. I truly do like the idea, but the projection could be displayed in a more interesting way than a hotel bar where you get the feeling of hostility just for showing an interest.

The content of the videos was just average, one example is of a video called Bricks by Sanchita Islam where you are looking through a wooden window frame at two guys stacking bricks. My personal opinion of this was that it was boring. The thing I did like about all the videos was the voyeuristic nature. The people in the videos weren't aware that they were being filmed, this in it's self made you think that something interesting was going to happen but nothing ever did. There was no narrative to  the videos.

Going to Bristol to see these videos wasn't a waste of time, It helped me develop some of my own ideas. For example some of the videos had quite a blurred effect so one idea was to film looking through a piece of glass covered in Vaseline.  One video was looking through the glass of a bus shelter so I had an idea of possibly looking through a stained glass window of a church.