Mar. 24, 2010 - Issue #753: Zion I

Works in common

The Greenhouse Effect's scenes of depth lack character

SNAP is still in process of moving to it's new home at 10123 - 121 St: the gallery is unfinished, lighting only partially installed and the rear section still full of stacks of materials, ladders and more. It is a work in progress.

Derek Besant has a bit in common with the unfinished space: his works also don't really seem to have much character. In The Greenhouse Effect, he plays with depth, staging a scene with a female figure and various props seen in silhouette behind a closed window blind, and the shadows of birds flying in front of the window—although it's hard to be entirely certain what is on top of what. He is clearly very interested in overlap of flat shapes, carrying this from his photographs of this layered stage into its printing on overlapping panels and semi-transparent scrims.

There's a hint of narrative in the series, the woman changing position and the birds continuing to fly overhead, and some implied interaction between the two, through their separation of the window. But they all seem very much the same. The panel images, printed on alternately raised and lowered surfaces in an even, arbitrary way, aren't helped by their drab, flat sense of surface, and the colour palette make this even more plain. Despite all of Besant's efforts to create an interplay between layers of depth, the images are dominated by this sense of plainness, by a lack of depth which breeds lack of interest.

In the middle section of the gallery, another series of images is hung more roughly under glass, bits of double-sided tape visible holding them to their backing. Although Besant seems not serious enough about these to give them any supporting information, they are more fun to look at. His interest in layering is plain here too, the photographs forming a series once again as a piece of fabric is pulled aside to reveal a very cinematic scene behind, and the fabric is tangled and affected by the two-dimensional/three-dimensional scene behind of a woman falling or leaping into an alleyway. Although the fabric layered on top of the photographs is unsubtle, perhaps tacky at times, these prints at least have something happening in them. V

UNTIL SAT, APR 10
The Greenhouse Effect
Featuring works by Derek Besant
SNAP Gallery (10123 - 121 st)

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