Gillian Brent
Sculpture : Public art : Creative learning
‘Thicket’, 2008
Persistence Works, Sheffield
For her solo exhibition at Persistence Works, Gillian created ‘Thicket’, a sculptural installation of tall steel objects, referring to the 'urban forest' of signage, cctv, street lighting, mobile phone masts and tv aerials that dominates our modern environment. Every building, street, motorway, roundabout has a forest of vertical poles. Most provide a service, some are watching us. There is no apparent order or aesthetic in this forest. 'Thicket' took this on and proposed a vision of how it could be while drawing attention to how it is.
The installation comprised of 21 steel objects 2 - 5 metres high set into islands covered with real grass, utilising the full height of the Persistence Works exhibition space. The exhibition appeared to be outdoors yet indoors; it could be seen as an indoor sculpture park. The audience experienced the earthy dampness of the grass and look up at the tall objects against the sky.
The Guardian Guide exhibition preview
Things manufactured for use by humans can confront us with a humanoid spookiness. TV aerials, mobile-phone signal transmitters, even those winking traffic lights, are the totem poles and all-seeing sentinels of our urban environment, Any art, by its nature essentially useless, which resembles something useful comes across as somewhat peculiar. These forms by Gillian Brent, a welded-steel cubist-inspired sculptor, are conjured from the absurd interbreeding of human posture and the insectile elaborations of our electrified cityscape. Here, within a scaled-down landscape of grassy knolls, her towers look petrified, as if momentarily arrested in their obscure purpose.
Robert Clark, 20 September 2008.
All images © Gillian Brent