Red cedar wood, 18 carat white gold, platinum, sapphire? Within first glance of Susan Collis’ new exhibition, these are not fathomable materials for the construction of a table, a set of overalls, a stepladder, several piles of wood and a dustsheet. Indeed, as I entered the gallery on opening night I was worried for the response of the eager art-pursuing friends I had brought with me; the exhibition looks as though it is in the middle of production, not at its finished result. However, upon closer inspection (and with the aid of the crucial exhibition description booklet) we could identify sheen of mother of pearl worked into the paint splodges of the stepladder and finely woven threads embroidered into the dustsheets and overalls. Even the bucket catching what first appears to be a leak from the gallery’s ceiling (for a moment I thought the Ikon Gallery had lost all of its’ funding!) is a mechanised pump connected to the gallery’s water system. Collis explains that the title of the exhibition ‘Since I fell for you’ is a song title, which made her realise ‘there was a dual meaning, the idea of something old being sacrificed in order to make way for something new’. However, Collis confirms that she is ‘not concerned with loving up the unlovable’ but rather to devalue the precious metals as they look like something completely ordinary.Hence, platinum nails hammered into walls.
Exhibition continues until 16th May.
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