Room 11

Room 11, installation shots

Vanessa Billy, Robert Holyhead and Sam Porritt

Curated by Gemma Lloyd

Addressing the viewer from both entry points are two components of Sam Porritt’s No Problem, Everyone’s Invited!, 2009 (a). Screwed into the floor, these aluminium carpet cover strips invoke a certain familiarity in their proximity to the doorways. Straying into the space however and going against the grain of the dark seasoned floorboards they start to suggest positions for the viewer to stand. Two further strips by the radiator are laid closely next to each other but begin to scissor away at one end. They are committed to this position and will never be parallel or aligned with each other; generating an uncomfortable stance that gives weight to this side of the room.

Horizontally demarcating one third of the room, Waist Line, 2009 by Vanessa Billy (c) plots out a stretched rectangular circuit in a continuous strip of punctured metal. The chain-like quality of the material sits uneasily at waist height and challenges or interrogates the possibility of looking closely at the painting behind it. Examining the two lines in parallel creates an optical experience asking the eyes to re-register and make sense of the illusionary depth. Like Porritt, Billy’s work elevates the viewer’s awareness of his or her own presence in the room. The tension, width and distance lend themselves to playground skipping games, which lead to an inviting experience in contradiction with its other more hostile qualities.

Wiped out edges interrupt the horizontal movement of the lightly painted surface in Robert Holyhead’s Untitled (Yellow), 2008 (b). They have in fact been removed with the artist’s thumb – and therefore introduce a third intimation of human presence into the installation. The painting works confidently in the room with a single command of sandy yellow. Much like the daylight coming through the window, this work picks out elements in the room, bringing out the faded sea green in a floor panel below and the luminescence of the doorway to its left. Poised at the bottom two corners of the canvas sits an accumulation of paint; the weightiest part of the work. The edges, of which we can only see one (unless we cross Billy’s work) hold a slight bleed of paint – there is deft negotiation in the painting and hung next to the window the natural light emphasises the light, fast paced yet measured surface.

Where Billy and Porritt introduce discrete household materials, Holyhead offers concrete forms in the composition that perhaps suggest the physical foundations of a space. Selected specifically in response to the room, the linear forms in all three of the works are in dialogue with the existing bands, stripes, panels and lengths in the space. Simultaneously, the installation frames and is framed by the wall, floor and space inside the room. The works carve out space and extend beyond the physicality of themselves, affecting the experience and behaviour of the viewer.

Gemma Lloyd, 2009