Left Hand to Back of Head, Object Held Against Right Thigh
The Bluecoat
Liverpool
22 Jan– 28 Mar 2016
The Bluecoat
School Lane
Liverpool
L1 3BX
Artists: Rowena Harris, Mary Hurrell, Natalie Finnemore, Mitra Saboury, Marianna Simnett, Marie Toseland, Hannah James, Becky Beasley
Left Hand to Back Of Head… presents a collection of works that set out to affect the audience on a physical level through sensations and emotions. The artists in this group show use installation, film, performance, photography and sculpture to form relationships between artworks and the bodies of the audience.
Curated by Adam Smythe
Pictured top to bottom:
Untitled, 2016
MDF, screws, paint
Untitled, 2016
MDF, screws, paint in collaboration with Rowena Harris Accreted Part 1 (green shirts), 2013 (re-configured 2016)
The sculptures adopt the familiar form of a bench, incorporating cut-out handles that imply mobility and use. Their positioning, however, renders them impractical, shifting their role from functional device to ornamental motif. The handles prompt viewers to imagine the labor of lifting and manoeuvring the object, yet this imagined action remains speculative. In this way, the work oscillates between utility and display.
Engaging with the language of ergonomics, the sculpture anticipates the body while subtly refusing it. Its proportions and finish suggest function, but its status as sculpture withholds physical interaction, producing a tension between invitation and denial. This generates a slightly unreal, almost digitally rendered quality - as though the object occupies a space between proposal and realisation.
Although materially weighty and constructed in MDF, the work originated in paper maquettes. Traces of this iterative process remain visible in minor irregularities, including a slight misalignment at the top. Areas painted in satin, colour-matched to the substrate, introduce subtle shifts between matte and sheen, reinforcing the interplay between solidity and artifice, domestic familiarity and sculptural autonomy.