Set in more than 100 acres of fields and woods, this year’s Summer programme at Jupiter Artland features two exhibitions by the artists Laura Aldridge and Andrew Sim. Whilst their works diverge in style and medium, in their unusual focus on the everyday they both draw attention to Jupiter’s natural landscape, and ask the viewer to think for themselves and extrapolate various emotions from differing materials.
Laura Aldridge’s installation LAWNMOWER invites the viewer to engage with senses beyond sight. Using ceramic, light, sound, videos and textiles, the artist has created a space forcing conversations between materials. For the first part of her contribution, the Glasgow-based artist has transformed The Steadings Gallery with a new body of work using light. Now glowing bright yellow, we are told the intervention was initially inspired by a ceramic doll in Paisley Museum where Aldridge’s studio is based. She remarks how nothing could be neutral, the room the antithesis of the White Cube gallery. Here, materiality encourages feelings in an open room filled with sculpture.
Aldridge draws on the doll’s mysterious origins and materials, yet more interesting is the heightened attention drawn to the microscopic and the everyday which become cosmic and playful. The viewer is invited to touch the surrounding sculpture and play with a trio of so-called wooden loveseats, made of brightly coloured curved wood and adorned with tactile ceramic sculpture – Aldridge draws attention to the materials coldness and warmth – push and pull.
Aldridge’s ceramic doll with dyed, hand-stitched fabric skirt has been abstracted in the lights which line the walls. Glowing different colours, and made in a combination of glossy ceramic and rougher fabric, they create a channel which guides the viewer towards videos which highlight the remarkable in the everyday. The yellow glow from the gallery means this is not necessarily a retreat from the outside world, but a space where the viewer is absorbed into an ulterior reality which calls into question the emotions, senses and experiences which we take for granted. The bright bold colours and intensity of senses make for a dramatic installation, matching Aldridge’s own vibrant personality.
By contrast, Aldridge’s other contribution brings you out in the open, where a tower of five gigantic snail shells draws attention to the diverse ecosystems which make up Jupiter Artland. Their familiar spiral shape connoting infinity is accentuated by the fountain of water cascading down their glossy ceramic surface, originally moulded from plaster. Aldridge plays further with the duality of the cosmic and the everyday, calling into question their presumed insignificance.
Where Aldridge reconnects with the outside world through intervention, Andrew Sim attempts to connect with Jupiter’s natural landscape by bringing the outside into the Ballroom. Sim speaks articulately on how their large-scale works of chalk, created over such a short period of time, are intended to express vulnerability, connection and growth. This is translated into the paintings’ bright bold imagery of sunflowers, rainbows, and werewolves, which are juxtaposed against black backgrounds.
Despite the rapid period of production, the imagery seems to be drawn from deep in Sim’s imagination. Yet, similarly to Aldridge, who draws on the everyday, it is revealed that the mystical plants reference the artist’s everyday experience of Queerness and ‘the visibility of the cis/het gaze’. These motifs, past features of Sim’s oeuvre, are displayed alongside new works which continue the artist’s exploration of trees, with some of the works made on-site at Jupiter, fittingly evoking metaphors of growth and roots for this Glasgow-born artist, who now works in New York.
Despite their own personal connection to the works, Sim manages to create motifs which are bold enough to resonate with all. Despite such different mediums, both artists seem fitting additions to Jupiter’s fantastical atmosphere. Their contributions sit alongside Jupiter’s permanent collection which includes works by Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, and Tracey Emin.
Whether it be Aldridge’s three-dimensional ceramic sculptures or Sim’s mystical pastel canvases, don’t miss out on a trip to Jupiter Artland this Summer. With its usual curated annual programme of public talks and events, including Jupiter Rising – a one night festival championing queer and Queer, Trans and/or Intersex Person of Colour (QTIPOC) experimental practice, taking place on Saturday 17th August, this year: the park has also expanded their events programme to include Wild Swimming.
With thanks to Nelly Laycock for this review.
