There's a whole lorra light down over at Malt Cross...
Leeds-based artist, Katrina Cowling, combines minimalist aesthetics, concepts of barren landscapes, and intriguing uses of neon lighting in Pale Lithics, her solo exhibition at Arts & Crafts Malt Cross. The exhibition, which opened on Light Night 2017, is part of an overarching theme of light and illumination.
Cowling is known for her use of neon light in sculpture and concept art, creating antithetic scenes of both mundaneness and enlightenment. The lighting is used with objects like hay bales, fencing and furniture, to challenge the viewer into seeing these objects in different ways, along with what they represent.
Neon lighting – a medium that is notoriously fragile and difficult to work with – harbours the brilliant ability to transform a space into a light source. The sculptures here are remnant of small boulders and rocks, with neon lighting acting like the flow of a small stream connecting the landscape to a holistic entity.
Let me stress that this is no extravagant light show. The neon light is used in a more figurative sense and in small doses – thin strips of it adorn the rock-like strata and snake along the floor alongside small piles of miniscule animal bones (which I totally didn’t see on my first look round, watch out for them). The addition of the bones emphasise a feeling of vastness, despite the show room being quite small.
You will become emerged in a minimalist desert, where sleek surfaces and forms reminiscent of packaging replace the expected cacti and dust balls, and the only source of sustenance is the neon light connecting the landscape.
The notion of light as a life source is perhaps not something that Cowling was trying to convey, but it is a notion that I cannot separate from Pale Lithics, especially in the dead of winter when any form of light, neon or natural, is a blessing.
The exhibition is free to enter and you might as well enjoy some delicious food and drink at Malt Cross while you’re there.
Pale Lithics is being exhibited at the Malt Cross until Sunday 26 March.
Katrina Cowling website
The Malt Cross website
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