PUT OUT THE SUN
GALLERY 2: THE BOGEYMAN
RHYS LEE – SARAH BERNERS – JEMILA MACEWAN – AMELIE SCALERCIO
GALLERY 3: THE DARKLANDS
PAUL PHILIPSON – CAMILLA TADICH – SIMON FINN – NICOLA PAGE
CURATED BY JON BUTT
All people understand fear.
Fear is the oldest and strongest emotion we have. It is a basic survival mechanism that responds to the possibility of pain or the threat of danger.
Fear sees all things in the dark; all things underground, all the dangers concealed, and because of this, fear builds our fires to ward off the night.
Put Out the Sun is an exploration of fear exhibited in two parts.
Presented as a structured narrative of works, this show explores modern day anxiety, old-fashioned menace, the unknown faceless horrors and sinister humour to address collective fears and personal experiences.
The show’s theme looks at how we construct very personal structures of fear around dual collective notions of the darkness in humanity and the darkness within the natural world. Each component creates an open ended dialogue on the two sub themes, at times subtle, at times head on with works that touch on many cultural and historical variations of these very specific fears.
This show is exciting in that it can address a theme that is both intensely attractive yet ultimately repellent to us all on a deeply personal level. These artists make work that reacts in that same way, through humour, personal reflection and through their own experience of fear. It’s an exhibition that looks at a wealth of cultural knowledge yet its context is definitely reflective within current affairs.
To borrow from C.S.Elliot, ‘…the lunatic cannot put out the sun by scrawling the word ‘darkness’ on his cell wall.’ In the same way, these artists cannot put out the fire of fear by creating the darkness within their works.
