notes from the drifting spaces

This year’s MFA from Glasgow School of Art was a very strong showing of many mature and confident works that, after several years of mixed MFA degree shows, really lived up to the challenge of the space. The Glue Factory presents artists with the opposite of a white cube space, it is an old converted factory that retains a life, and atmosphere, of itself, with its dark cavernous rooms downstairs , nook and crannies, remnants of industrial machinery, and fascinating combinations of materials wherever you look as you walk into the brighter spaces on the upper floor. So a pretty distracting environment for artists to work with.

The thematic content and character of the artworks by the students was totally different in this show, the video works downstairs especially unified in much more visual and dreamy, non human focus, interacting with the heavy, cold feeling of the spaces. Selma Hreggviðsdóttir’s ‘Shrine’ room with nine minute video, near the entrance to the show, encapsulated this mood. The square format, projected roughly a few metres wide, presented a telescopic looking glass like composition with gradually moving shots and subtle overlaps of what looked like landscape and rocks close-ups. Sometimes the movement would be horizontal, and other times would switch to vertical, giving an automated or alien impression of the earth from above. The ambient music worked very well, creating a slow motion soundscape.

Into the space, more video works presented worlds without people, with a sense of quiet randomness. Some visitors left remarking on the lack of interest in portraits this year, maybe they came to the wrong show! This quiet was palpable, a kind of lurking feeling behind the works, as if the building was communicating through them. Emily McFarland’s three videos created larger spaces to look into -her ‘Zabriskie Point Reversed.MOV’ (6 mins) used slow motion, reversing an explosion of stuff into a bright blue happy sky. There again a mood non commercial, a destruction of the world of things.

Into further darker rooms, Katrina Valle’s ‘Mezzanine’ (HD video, 19 mins) had apparently abstracted flames turning quickly in the darkness, so that the screen itself would be no longer separate from the space. As you peer closer, the image unravels from fragmented shapes into what appears to be candles moving round a glass. Next to this room, the first of a few strong works by Lauren Wells, ‘Bouncing Light’ (digital video, 3.45 mins) turned a tunnel like area on its side, subverting the horizon with shaky filming and night like spaces. Continuing the dreamy trip through the darkness, I moved into the next space, a contained installation by Ying Cui, ‘As Far as I Heard’, a neon red glowing room with videos, sound, acrylic, plastics and tracing papers. All these materials and film sequences were able to overlap, creating a complicated and unclear feeling, simulating multi layered experiences and thoughts. The projected film through the shapes created an almost abstract expressionist piece.

I inched carefully forward to the next exhibits, two works by Lauren Wells, guided by a glimmer of light from upstairs. Although her text piece, with reliance on the screen wasn’t quite my thing, her next video ‘Dream’ (5.29 mins – “It’s all new. It’s all part of her past” reads the title card), for which you had to crouch down to see it, was very appealing. Hazily captured waves breaking, and breaking, on an unknown shore at night, a lighthouse light blinking far out on the next headland through the low blue light.

Upstairs and into the light, Kirsty Palmer’s new work delightfully followed in the footsteps of her undergraduate degree show, with an array of sensitively crafted and placed temporary pieces, plus video and two dimensional work, making up a fascinating installation titled ‘Points Between’. The low grounded-ness of the works, some smaller and curiously positioned to draw you in closer, was interesting, such as the small film (‘bloom for a bushfire’, digitally edited super 8mm film, 30 mins) projected next to the stairway. Here subtly shifting and changing close up views of plant matter, densely jungle like but muted, set up a background mood for the still works in the brighter room adjacent. The standing plaster pieces, some looking very recently made as if they may just melt, flow, crumble or subside right in front of you, look at first quite minimal or calm. As you observe these however you become aware of the myriad of textures, from those of the digital print transfers worked in while wet to the scooped plaster marks of the ‘rescued ring’ and the bubbling crustaceous ‘seed pod’. The tonality and especially the organic presence of this body of work again intertwined poignantly with the architecture of the Glue Factory.

Also on the top floor was a quirky, outsider type film which was quite original and fun, ‘Bootcut Renaissance’ (HD video, 5.10 mins) by Dominic Watson. It should be pretty bad, using a dancing sculpted manly figure of clay or paper mache and wild west set, with music by Lana Del Rey – ‘Blue Jeans’ – but funnily sets off the tongue in cheek themes with the props including very cheap shoes and shirt that toys with the viewer, and is reminiscent of some Hollywood road movie and love story gone wrong. Overall the MFA this year was a really strong exhibition showing quite a few interesting artists with a refreshing mindset and take on contemporary art. They will be good to go find again in future, perhaps in more dark and strange exhibition spaces.