Darren Banks @ Sierra Metro

Perfectly offset by Sierra Metro’s dark room and white pillars, Banks’ new installation work is centrepieced with a heap of various domestic objects that rise up to the ceiling. On a base of wooden pallets are carefully stacked tables, chairs and shelves, mixed with piles of DVD players and TV monitors; various lightshades and a green plant stick out at the top of the installation, unexpected presence of life and promise of light in the dark and barely lit room.

The strength of Soothsayers lies in this startling tension between its various elements. The life of the plant and the inanimate furniture, the religious symbols fading in the face of TV ghosts and atmospheric lightings and soundtracks; the reassuring objects one remembers from a childhood living room are suddenly made redundant by their multiplication, subsequently losing their meaning and reassuring presence. Excerpts from old cartoons and retro horror films are devoid of significance when removed from their context. Elsewhere in the room, a camping table is knocked over and a ghostly veil is draped over another monitor. Surrounded by these signs something has happened; the work offers no respite from the lingering anxiety it perfectly creates and which seems to even creep into the mundane. [Adeline Amar]