Messing with the mind at the 2023 Burrowes School of Art exhibition

Extract from installation by Yedidiyah Gordon

Mirrors

Cheerful security guard holding the large gun opens the gate and says yes yes go through when I say I am going to gallery. The heat is on , I am feeling fuzzy as two nights of bad sleep due to the heat and so. Coming to the exhibition as I think I need to do things I planned since sleeping in the heat doesn't make sense even with a fan.

Castellani House is cool inside. I go upstairs and see bright colours of the flowers on the wall where I had first seen Bernadette Persaud's Birth of  Lotus when I had visited the gallery the first time. 

I see myself in the jigsaw mirror and think right.. your face looking tired. Walk around the pieces, looking though I feel like I am not looking. Bright colours of musical instruments. Fashion, jewellery.  I am not sure why I am not drawn to the bright colours and the jewellery.

The mind.

See the big mirror. Some people posted on Facebook with selfies. I like the reflections of Yedididyah Gordon's textile work in the mirror. I take the picture. I come home and look at the image and realise that the frame has some interesting shapes and forms, that I should have paid more attention to the frame, rather than the mirror. Or rather the image in the mirror.

Did the people who took selfies in the mirror notice the frame?

Extract from work by Yedidiyah Gordon

 Walking through the mask 

 The Burrowes exhibitions give an opportunity to interact with the students.  "Please let me know if you would like me to explain anything", Yedidiyah Gordon tells me cheerfully. 

I think of Akima McPherson's Eye on Art series and I realised I should have had a run through again to look at the elements. I think is good to have conversation with the artists. I also feel a bit weird thinking what if I see things which the artist did not intend to show.. and do I want to be told what I should see?

But I am glad that the artist is there. She encourages me to  go through the mask.  So I have to touch the work , split the mask and go beyond. I am a bit nervous hoping I don't bring down the whole thing.

There is a dark cavern... like old time horror house at school fairs. Some fairy lights. Two mannequins, one with a white dress and one with a black dress. The artist explains this is her major task and it represents the dilemma and anxiety in deciding on the project. She says this is her mind. 

The nets look like neural networks in the brain which could stimulate ideas, rather than her intention to show tangled thoughts and indecisions. Maybe the nets could be both things. 

I ask her if she is doing an experiment.. because I mean.. why would people want to walk through a scary looking doorway into the unknown? Like I did.. 

Messing with the mind 

Outside the installation, I start a conversation  with a young man. We talk about speaking our mind, and not being afraid. And that silence does not protect us. I continue the conversation with another person. Something about talking about the local oppressions and other things in the art space.. in the house which Burnham lived in the art.

 Another artist, Christopher Kilkenny goes down the stairs with me to his work. He asks if I am a budding artist or just interested. I tell him that the art is good to upset the mind. 

I hope to turn up perceived ideas and to get new ways of seeing things, mess up my mind.

My eyes go to a piece , he explains 'discharge' , which is about the mind. He said a few people were drawn to it first. I am trying to work out the other pieces on the wall, figures moving, some parts contrasting with others.

 

Extract from Christopher Christopher Killikelly 's piece around the mind

The artist as storyteller 

 I look at each painting individually. There are different. Christopher Killikelly then explains that the series are in sequence, part of a story. And told the story, starting with the World Cup Football .  And there is this moment in the gallery, the artist as storyteller.. my eyes moving across the series as he explains, sometimes going back - a kind of futuristic science fiction fantasy thing which I don't normally read. And is not quite non-linear across the paintings as some parts of the story you kind of go back and forth.

My mind is a bit messed up too because I had a conversation with someone and I knew their life, what they did. But I forgot the name.. and while looking to open my mind to this story, another part of my brain was trying to work through clues to the person's name. I had to come home and go back on the computer and check.

Paintings by Christopher Killikelly

As I write this, I wonder when did the story evolve into the paintings? How did he decide which parts of the story go to each painting? Could there be other paintings for other parts of the story?

And could I mess up my mind so that  I could make up different stories from the series?

(The exhibition continues until 4 August, 2023 at Castellani House. I regret not making a firm note of the names of the pieces. )