A review of Matter Out of Place exhibition, Yorkshire Artspace, Sheffield 17 June to 10 July 2021
by Gillian Whiteley, Artist/Bricoleuse
Times out of joint, matter out of place
There is something enchanting about entering the cavernous exhibition space populated with the tangle of materials and wondrous array of objects that is Material Voice’s Matter Out of Place. Like a small animal asleep, a skein of dark hair, bound with nylon mesh, lies limp on the windowsill. Is it breathing, is it alive? Through the vast shopfront window of the Yorkshire Artspace, passers-by peer in at an assemblage of objects created by Burton Street artists arranged on a tall table. Resembling a crazy magician’s set of props, wooden blocks are decorated with bright splashes of paint and day-glo pipe-cleaners, a green ball balances precariously on a luminous orange plastic yarn cone. An assortment of linked objects perch high up on a ledge: small wooden shapes tied up with string are attached to a jagged twig with a bright orange ball that surveys the space like a living watchful antennae. A little further along, a surreal object catches the eye: the cardboard box, one of Clee Claire Lee’s Utters, ‘Utter II’, appears to be sprouting wiry pubic hair. Perhaps this is yet another sign of life, stuttering, heckling, sniggering.
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