Geographies of Dust and Air @ Mary Mary

Surprisingly hard to miss, a handcrafted mirror, mounted on wood that bears signs of its sculpting is set next to Mary Mary’s office door. It’s part of group show Geographies of Dust and Air, a collection of works that trade on succinctness – somehow exceeding the sum of their parts.

In Germaine Kruip’s Dot Kannadi (the little mirror mentioned before), its small scale isn’t effacing. In effect, it’s more like a mole on the otherwise even complexion of the wall – scratched and marked, texturally it draws attention.

Dot Kannedi faces Bojan Šarčević’s steel and copper frame. The metal sculpture is comparable with clothing shop rails, or a bracket left over from a flat screen TV. Its thick poles become an effective counter to the mellifluous orange-yellow staining of the painting hanging off it.

More metalwork, but skinnier, in Sara Barker’s works. Bored into the wall, its thin scaffolding becomes oddly upheaved, suspended and clinging to the wall. Bringing to mind the ambivalent meaning of the word ‘skeletal,’ it’s emaciated, but reduced to important parts, and referring in form to a supporting framework.

While Barker’s work references the sketchy outline of linear drawing, Manuela Leinhoß’s painting work is intersected by straight grey lines on its yellowing white background. All looking bleached out by overexposure, stuck to the surface there are papier mache burst football-looking forms making for an odd pictorial plane.

It’s a repeated formula of whole exceeding the sum, and an appropriately concise rationale for the exhibition. Whether from Manuela Leinhoß’s scored board and blobs, the mirror on wood or thin metal frames, each work constructs its own discrete mathematics. [Adam Benmakhlouf]