EXHIBITIONS    KATHRYN RYAN: Collection of studio objects

"The sheer number of the things needing to be arranged and the near-impossibility of distributing them according to any truly satisfactory criteria mean that I never finally manage it, that the arrangements I end up with are temporary and vague, and hardly any more effective than the original anarchy. The outcome of all this leads to truly strange categories. A folder of miscellaneous papers, for example, on which is written 'To be Classified'..."[1]

Georges Perec 'Species of Spaces and Other Pieces'

 

I wasn't sure what to do on arriving at 26 Ross Street. I had the vague idea of installing a small model studio space, of trying to remember, through recreating, the easy potential of all things held together under that name. I brought what I thought to be an abundance of objects - china leaves, sea glass, corals and plaster casts, sponges and globes, bottles, spools, twigs and pins, boxes and bags of things: black, white, gold, silver, caramel and grey.

 

The window space, and table inside, quickly became a jumble of chaotic bric-a-brac. Ordinarily the arrangements of these things are particular, a combination and play of names, spaces, environments, animals and different processes. I'm not sure exactly what it is I collect - but I'm interested in any thing that is not quite itself, that used to be something else, is in a state of slow unravelling, of losing its name - or that used to do something or belong somewhere fantastical. Then there are some things made special by a lack of use, forgotten or saved, highlighted by their unintentional accumulation of time.

 

Looking at this mass of objects with all their potential categories in such close proximity, and envisioning them in the window space was slightly overwhelming. Coupled with this was my realisation that I'd rarely worked with such a clean display space, or perhaps given due consideration to the window's nature - to capturing the momentary casual passer's eye, and so I progressed slowly. I didn't mind this slowness, there was pleasure in seeing these objects again, as there was in showing them to Sarah Nolan and viewing them through her eyes - but perhaps sensing my hesitation and witnessing my snail pace, Sarah mentioned in passing how they might look arranged by colour.

 

I quickly abandoned my unformulated experiment, and eagerly embarked on this suggestion. Colour had always held a particular, though undefined, position in my work. It was important, but perhaps I'd always felt a bit self conscious of addressing it - worried there wasn't proper credibility in a choice I suspected of being purely aesthetic. I found these colours beautiful, their natural tones pleasing, soothing and rich with texture. Such qualities ask little justification, and their existence always seems a little uncertain, however with closer examination there were also other reasons. I liked the way, in colour terms at least, all these objects could become reconciled to each other. There could be all these other points of tension between them, but materially they were sympathetic.

 

So it was quite freeing to arrange them like this, to acknowledge that material part of them, and for their categorisation to be so obvious that, for a moment at least, it subdues their threatening anarchy.

 

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