Yes!

Breathing Space

Bekah Carran, Regan Gentry, Shaun Gladwell, Maddie Leach, Nathan Thompson and P. Westbourne
at The Physics Room
2 Jan 2005

by Artbasher 18 Apr 2005

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Ah! At last, a return to quality from this place! I really enjoyed this show. Great works all around, I loved the overall vibe (theme, whatever) – also amazed by the strong unity of this group show. There is a wonderfully pleasant sense of stillness, slowness and emptiness of time and space to this show.

First one encounters the sound bubble of glitchy burning like noises, which in contrast to the rest of the show is quite claustrophobic. Then there are the delicate spray-painted alien plants poking up through the floorboards.

Behind these on a TV screen, a man at first appears as if in a space ship, floating and slowly wriggling about. But it doesn’t look quite right, and on closer inspection, the true source becomes apparent: It is an over-cranked upside down shot of a man hanging from the banister of either a double-decker bus or a train as it moves along. His “wriggling” is actually his attempt to maintain a comfortable position.

The funniest work by far is a classical plaster bust resting on a plinth. But this is no ordinary plinth, for it houses within a belt sander, which has been geared to turn slowly. On this sander the bust rests, ever so gradually being ground away. OMG, coolest thing I’ve seen in forever. And resting on the floor nearby are 5 more busts waiting to be ground once this one is gone. Hahahahaha. The ultimate statement: creation is destruction. (Of course, the physics room people say it’s something about a rejection of modernist values blah de blah - actually it's quite a good essay. I mean their essays are always good, but it's just so much better when the art lives up to it!)

Other works include a projected loop on two walls of a cruise ship sailing on a placid sea, and a bizarre projection of a model nighttime cityscape.

So calm. So m u c h s p a c e !