Cathy Wilkes @ Tramway

Review by Franchesca Hashemi | 07 Aug 2014

As part of the GENERATION series, Cathy Wilkes has curtailed the gigantic venue of Tramway 2 to create an intimately sensorial environment. Introversion and lack of definitive meaning are displaced in Wilkes' material world. We know this is an artist who relies on the sixth sense, the one which allows us to expand ourselves from what we physically are. This makes it difficult to pay dues for a paradoxically refined production however if we follow the artist's abstract process then instinct and culturally accepted facts link the comfort of delicate materials with the stance of each model.

Most of the figures wear a soft palette sack, either with gold lace or pastel effect. They don't have arms, but the larger feminine bodies are broad chested with jutting square knees. Tiptoeing between them and the tiny babes who lie asleep on Tramway's cold floor, there's a desire to connect strength with vulnerability. It could be a reference to an insatiable refugee system, or perhaps something closer to home. The thing is, Wilkes' work is very much what you make it so we continue through the arcane effigies and come to bedraggled china peeking from within. Sizeable mugs stand atop a withered chest of drawers, suggesting a range of emotions spill from each slurp. Painted on a jovial tankard is a quaint landscape with a path leading to the fine-blue hilltop. It allows a fish-eye glimpse into a serene destination while portraying either naïve fantasy or optimistic reality.

The mismatched objects provide a quaint but strenuous scattering of the immaterialist's material heaven. Then, as we glance at the criss-cross thread structure hanging between two pillars, the figure of a small child peers from behind. It appears secluded but on closer inspection the expected loneliness is simply not there. Just a feeling of longing sidled by an inchoate creation. [Franchesca Hashemi]

Tramway, until 5 Oct http://tramway.org/events/Pages/Cathy-Wilkes-.aspx