Exhibition: Emma Hart at Fruitmarket Gallery
Having had my reservations about this show before seeing it, I can gladly say it was worth the visit. Emma Hart's 'BANGER' at Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh is a two-part show split over the two floors. The ground floor, titled 'Mamma Mia!', is an installation derived from the residency she undertook in Italy which was awarded as part of the 2016 Max Mara Art Prize for Women. The first floor, 'BANGER' is filled with a wider variety of sculptures responding to the gallery space itself.
A dimmed room lit up by speech bubbles projected on to the floor by hanging ceramic lights shaped like human heads, the projections sliced through by knives, forks and spoons rotating like ceiling fans, drawing your eye upwards to the inside of each domed sculpture to be surprised and delighted by colourful patterns and shapes.
It's a fun show filled with symbols and patterns that can easily be related to and reveled in. Subtly colourful and yet reserved at the same time because of its monochromatic disguise from a passing glance. There is also something to be said about lighting - I don't know what it is, but there's something unspoken about a dimly lit room that puts everyone at ease. The attention isn't on you looking at the art but on the art itself, it demands all the focus which is really something special about this show.
Moving upstairs to the second part of the show, it's a completely different atmosphere. Brightly lit white gallery space as standard, but filled with an odd mix of sculptures which on first glance seem nothing too exciting, and the reason I wasn't sure I would like this exhibition from the outset. But actually looking at the objects I felt so much appreciation for the detail in the pieces and the inherent links to everyday objects we all know and perhaps don't appreciate fully.
A collection of road signs, safety barricades, steering wheels and rearview mirrors are all transformed from banal to surprising by use of pattern and colour. The artist's fingers dented in to the simplified steering wheels in the 10 to 2 positions in red and blue, making the viewer want to touch the object itself and see if it turns in its wall mounted position.
Smashed ceramic road safety signs excite the eye as the viewer discovers each sign is different on either side - different patterns and hidden treats such as the almost missable small heart broken in two nestled amongst a spiderweb of colourful cracks.
Then there's the rearview mirrors which in contrast to their more abstract counterparts, illustrate actual views from them - the lines of a car's tire tread showing where it has been, and a zebra patterned sign indicating a sharp turn. Again these are ceramic, and I think the material makes them nicer, perhaps because of their fragile nature or maybe because of how smooth and glossy the black is against the roughness of the white engravings.
There is also the inclusion of a car passenger made out of ceramic pieces winding down the window, or rather themselves, to the floor. As well as a road safety sign being transformed into a windshield complete with wiper and the repeated pattern of the windscreen wiper motion and a bizarre inclusion of two hands clinging to the edge. However the most interactive sculpture with the gallery space would have to be these "flat" tyres, again ceramic, laying crumpled on the floor and over the railings of the stairs like they're waiting to dry.
Overall a really fantastic show which is immediately accessible to everybody. I thoroughly enjoyed being constantly surprised as I drew connections between objects and patterns and what each represented and I will definitely be following Emma Hart's work in the future. The exhibition closes tomorrow so if you have time to fit it in on your Sunday schedule I would highly recommend it.
Did you see the show? What did you think?
Let me know in the comments!
Love,
Melissa x