N I C O L A L A N E & K A R L S O M E R S
Two person show | Nicola Lane & Karl Somers | 13 a Gallery | Norwich | May 2015
That of Which We Wash our Hands II, by Nicola Lane. 10 squares of Savon de Marseilles soap – imprinted with text relating to the Social Contract – have had the words selectively cleansed away.
The Social Contract, never having been formally written down, is itself as ephemeral and vulnerable as the material used here. At the top of the pyramid the contact is intact and sealed in wax, but as we go down to the bottom, elements such as Civil Society, Civic Pride and Civil Rights begin to be eroded, leaving only Civil Responsibility and Civic Duty.
The Lands that Never Die, works by Karl Somers.
In this series of paintings entitled The Lands That Never Die, Somers paints landscapes from his home place at the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. As a lad, Somers hiked every inch of these foothills with his father, and the landscape itself was a playground. Much of the lands have now been built on, blighted with houses and apartments, which deeply saddened Somers after returning from the Northwest of Ireland, where he studied for his BA. This body of work is a response to that development of a beloved landscape.
W H I T E W A S H E D
Type Trail | Installation | Nicola Lane | Hay Festival | Kells | July 2015
Film by Karl Somers of the making of artist Nicola Lane’s site specific installation Whitwashed for Kells Type Trail, as part of the Hay Festival.
T H A T O F W H I C H W E W A S H O U R H A N D S
Quies | Installation | Edwardian Cloakrooms Bristol | Curated by Sightlines
Preparing for the exhibition…
Quies is an exhibition of work by three multidisciplinary artists who have been invited to respond, not just to the physical space of Bristol’s Edwardian Cloakrooms, but also to the tacit history of a space through which people from all walks of life would once have passed. Of particular interest is the fact that the cloakrooms have ‘lain still’ for decades and been left virtually unchanged, as if in a state of limbo or stasis from which they could conceivably return at any given moment.
Dublin-based artist Nicola Lane will play on this possibility with the creation of a mise-en-scene that reimagines the past life of a functioning Edwardian ladies washroom through sensory triggers such as, among other things, sounds of running water, the smell of soap and flower waters, and the look and feel of crisp linens.
In the Gents Cloakroom, a sculptural installation of wax castings by Wiltshire-based artist Beth Biddiss will manifest ghostly traces of passers-by who have long since departed, while Irish artist Karl Somers’ sound pieces draw on a timeless aspect of visiting any public place—the age-old guilty pleasure of eavesdropping.
Preparing That of Which We Wash Our Hands…
Inscribing the text into prepared clay
Casting the resin molds
Finished resin stamps… ready to stamp soap
The exhibition ran from 25 – 30 November 2014
Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 – 18:00
Sunday 11:00 – 17:00
Opening reception: Tuesday 25 November, 18:00 – 21:00
The Edwardian Cloakroom
Park Row/Woodland Road
Clifton
Bristol BS1 5LS
Nicola Lane 