Article on Mr. Motley
by Inez Piso, June 18 2008
Light, Bright and Clear
Laura d’Ors, Cristina Marques en Qui Yang
I walk into Galerie Gist thinking I’m going to see an installation consisting of a plump knee and a wig. Much to my surprise it’s a photography exhibition. But the photography of Cristina Marques, Laura d’Ors and Qui Yang is not at all a disappointment. These three artists do not know each other; the exhibited work is not the result of collaboration but their work does go very well together. The work hanging on the white gallery walls screams: ‘Surrealism!’. The three young artists all play with the truth and the language of the surrealists. Each of them does so through manipulation of the surface. Marques employs skin-like surfaces in which body parts disappear. The raw flesh that does pop up and show itself to the lens has been photographed in confrontational detail. Every single hair, vein and flake of skin speaks the truth. The authenticity of the body cannot be avoided and is situated in an unrealistic setting. It appears crystal clear, as implied by the title, but it also reveals the layer underneath that clear glass.
I also interpret d’Ors’s work in this way. One of her photographs is of a realistic garden with a looming magical cloud of smoke. The easily-recognisable background that exudes a certain timelessness contrasted with the appearance moment of the cloud points to something ephemeral and unreal.
For this reason, her photographs are real objects, like chairs in a room. They seem to have a natural presence in the strange atmosphere she creates. The white chair is, naturally, a white chair, but I can’t make out what the black figure are right away. I do a double take to determine whether it is a girl wearing black tights and a black skirt or a silhouette of that girl. Eventually I just decide it is a manipulated black figure.
Qiu Yang’s use of the surface is completely different. He knocks together cruise ships in an awkward way and photographs his spaces. The unfinished wooden sides of his so-called cruise ship take up most of the surface of the photograph, which covers the real wall of the gallery. In effect I am looking at a photographed wall hanging on a real wall.
Actually, the artwork in the gallery are the installations I had expected. Logical, you would think, but what happened to them? I decide to ask the gallery owner. ‘They disappeared…’ he says with a cryptic smile.
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