Changing Room - Stirling's gallery for art

PALLAS
Karla Black, Lorna Macintyre, Sophie Macpherson, Sally Osborn
5 December 2003 – 24 January 2004

PALLAS brought together the work of four artists, linked by their use of materials, surface and form. Their work is connected through overlapping notions, such as exploration of context, the desire of ownership, theatrical elements and the viewer’s role in the artwork. Through drawings and sculptures they formed a range of responses to the gallery and its immediate setting in the shopping arcade.

Karla Black makes different configurations of formless matter that may or may not become solid objects. The materials are not used in a purely gestural sense since there is always a sense of intent and a support (plinth/frame/stage). Black is interested in the way that hiding things can awaken our curiosity and how we might try to complete objects by revealing their hidden parts.

Lorna Macintyre’s staged interventions aimed to investigate the relationships between the experience of the work and the authorship of art making. Her work for PALLAS was a constructed exhibiting space (within the gallery) supporting a series of fragmented works to create a loose self-portrait of the artist, the influences in the work and in turn the process of art making.

Sophie Macpherson’s work involves elements of theatre and performance as well as an interest in ‘theatrical space’. She explored ideas around tableau, landscape and spatial perspective, and researched specific times in the history of theatre, cabaret and stage. For PALLAS Macpherson presented a series of coloured pencil drawings made during the summer of that year, creating two-dimensional images of tableaux rather than constructing three-dimensional physical spaces.

Drawing is at the centre of Sally Osborn’s practice, with an emphasis on materials and processes. For the work in PALLAS, she applied watercolour paint to glass, tin foil, tissue paper and paper handkerchiefs. Watercolour became an unstable medium as it was both repelled and absorbed by the different supports. She was interested in creating a pictorial dialogue through these things and objects – pictorial essences that are filtered through history.

Exhibition supported by Scottish Arts Council

A printed document produced for PALLAS in collaboration with Sarah Tripp accompanied is available from the gallery (£1). See Publications for ordering details.

osborn