Augury
May 20 - July 26 2006

Tara Bryan Gallery Marshalsea Road Borough London

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Augury presents the work of Oliver Clegg and Alastair Mackie. Although the artists work independently, when shown together, Clegg’s paintings and Mackie’s sculptures create an engaging dialogue where themes of nostalgia, life and death, innocence versus experience, are developed and innovatively realised. Both artists have engaged with the current political and sociological issues prevalent in our society, but have been drawn to traditional techniques and earthy materials to address these contemporary concerns.

Oliver Clegg’s paintings begin with the use of an old drawing board, complete with past illustrations and artistic workings, imbuing it with a sense of history and time. Clegg incorporates this surface history, but transforms the board from a banal studio accoutrement into an image where time and space are manipulated and confused. These paintings convey images of discarded children’s toys, meticulously and realistically painted onto the surface, juxtaposed with abstract blocks of black encroaching from the edges, creating an unsettling and ambiguous undertone. Here the artist is playing with the viewer’s sense of the pictorial space and alludes to the idea of depicting another world, hallucinatory and imagined. The artist states, “I am constantly looking for surfaces and subjects that have the potential to inspire an open narrative dialogue.” The realistic depictions of childhood paraphernalia and the use of figurative oil painting allude to traditional genres of still-life and landscape and this nostalgic approach is enhanced by placing the paintings behind framed glass. The frame adds to a sense of history and archive, suggesting the presentation of an historic object, where the paintings resonate with the idea of a distant memory and a time of lost innocence.

What sets Alastair Mackie apart from many sculptors working today is his dedication to craft and to developing this skilful artistic discipline. Mackie is attracted to symbols of power and warfare, but frequently subverts his subjects with his choice of material. In Mud Hut (2005), Mackie skilfully produced a maquette of the Capitol building in Washington, the focal point of the Government’s legislative branch, constructed with mud, straw and horse manure – the symbol of Western democracy portrayed as primitive and perhaps a comment on American foreign policy. Mackie continues this body of work in his new sculpture, Dancing Star (2006), a model of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building in New York, built between 1954-1958, and hailed as a masterpiece of skyscraper design. Van der Rohe utilised luxurious materials such as steel and bronze to create this vision of urban sophistication. Mackie’s use of daub, an ancient building material, contradicts the symbol of modernity that van de Rohe wanted to achieve, and questions ideas of technological advancement. This metaphorical association of material is evident in Ghost Rider (2006), a human skull adorned with precious stones depicting the design of an American fighter pilot helmet plagiarised from the 1986 film ‘Top Gun’. Similar to an Aztec death-mask, this piece is evocative of a shamanistic object, perhaps highlighting the absence of spirituality and faith in our secular society and the detrimental effects this may have. The incorporation of popular culture can be seen as commenting on how warfare is sensationalised by the media and provokes debates on its relevance and necessity. With meticulous, almost obsessive craftsmanship, Mackie’s work questions ideas of cultural change and progress.

In an era of new media and advanced technology, Clegg and Mackie’s return to traditional techniques is refreshing and engaging. Both artists re-use found objects and imbue them with a new narrative and symbolism, but still retain their history and provenance. Presented together, the works appear to have a nostalgic reverence to the historical past, but hint at how this has been tainted and manipulated by the destructive nature of the modern world.

Melissa Digby-Bell - curator