KINd – an exhibition by Carol Anne Gainer. Brutal, 48 Albert Road, Woodstock.
MEGAN CHORITZ reviews
Walking into the black box of Brutal, a tiny but totally sophisticated gallery space, is a trip. The outside world, seen through the window onto busy Albert Road, is separated out and the work on the walls and floor speak. This is the second exhibition of Carol’s work I have seen, and this time, with KINd (a title that I love and am so moved by) her work is even more part of the space.
There are four drawings, an installation and a video, and everything speaks to everything in the KIN/kind way. My favourite drawing (if you can call it that) is one called bond, and I feel the bond between the two heads so acutely. It is a beautifully articulated piece, where the layers of meaning, decoration, design and detail are complex yet minimal at the same time. It’s hard to explain. But it is beautiful. And so are the three others.
Deeply personal, fragile, funny work
An installation of gold ribbon and gold spray painted flowers extends from a black wall to a plinth, where there is a Miss Havisham-style gold bouquet. This brings up feelings of marriage, and decoration, and ritual, and relationship, and forever and ever, and Indian heritage and tradition, and the strangeness of the world. It’s fantastic and silly and imaginative and weirdly entertaining.
And then, in the video, a loop of textures from an aging concrete wall is the backdrop for the spray painting of the flowers, where negative and positive spaces are formed and reimagined.
There is something precious but totally unpretentious about this deeply personal, fragile, funny work, and I love it. Go and check it out.
What: KINd
Where and when: Brutal, 48 Albert Road, Woodstock until 18 March 2024
WS
