Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Currently open in the skies above GlastonBelli on the mainland continent of Corsica sits Limitations are Self-Imposed a 3D installation by Regi Yifu.

The essential idea appears simple enough: a rainbow-hued series of walls interspersed with the shadowy forms of trees around and between which shade-like birds fly, forms a maze visitors are invited to walk. However, appearances are deceptive. Finding your way around the maze to its heart isn’t simply a matter of trying to pick the correct route between the high walls.

This becomes apparent as soon as one enters the maze: the walls are actually phantom, allowing people to pass through them. So why the maze? The clue is in the title of the piece: all too often the limitations we place in life are self-imposed, either personally or by the strictures of our environment.

We make ourselves follow lines of thinking / belief / the demands of society when trying to grow or learn or achieve, and as a result, we frustratingly come across walls that seem to block our way, causing us to stop, turn back and try again using a different approach – one that may succeed or may lead to further frustration. But what if we didn’t? Rather than turning aside, what if we just kept pushing forward and pushing through the apparent barriers we face?

Many of the world’s ideas and innovations have been achieved in this manner: by pushing against limits, by turning aside and moving outside of “traditional thinking / approaches.

True, doing so may not always yield the immediate result we hope for – there might be further barriers to work through / around; by pushing through one barrier might lead to initial confusion as much as trying to follow traditional thinking, and so on.  This, too, is reflected by Regi’s maze: pushing through a wall here and another there can lead you to a point where progress has been made, but you’re not at the heart of the maze – and it’s no longer clear where that centre is; you need to pause, reorient – and then push onwards.

A simple but layered installation that is also fun to visit.

SLurl Details

• Limitations are Self-Imposed (Sevenfold, rated General)

Now open at Kultivate Magazine’s The Edge Gallery is a new ensemble exhibition of art to take us through the end of May and into June 2022.

The Edge is the home of black-and-white art displays at Kultivate’s home of Water Haven, making it a particular attraction for me, as I very much appreciate monochrome and black-and-white art, and have been endeavouring to develop my own technique with it, which I may get around to showing at some point.

This exhibition at The Edge opened on May 22nd, and is without a given theme, allowing the artists free rein over the pieces they’ve selected to display. The participating artists are: Dawnbeam Dreamscape, Sophia Galewind, Lena Kiopak, Maaddi, Hannah Starlight, Tacca Exotic, Vita Theas and Myra Wildmist.

As might be expected from such a gathering, the pieces on offer leans very much towards being avatar-focused, with three of the artists – Lena Kiopak, Hannah Starlight and Tacca Exotic opting to display a single piece each, all in a large format.

Lena is one of only two artists in the gathering to completely avoid avatars in her image(s), leaving The Passage as an powerfully eye-catching piece which calls to the observer, beckoning them to walk its length and into the waiting story. Similarly, Hannah’s His Song is highly sensual and artistically given whilst Tacca’s Emergence-1 matches the power of The Passage, but in a wholly different way.

The other artists to avoid avatar is Vita Theas, who once again present six superbly processed and presented landscape pieces rich in life, whilst Sophia and and Maadi offer a mix of avatar studies and landscapes – with Sophia’s b r e a t h e again particularly capturing my eye. Myra, meanwhile offers a set of five images that together form Myra Dances, something of a life and motion study.

SLuel Details

• Kultivate The EdgeGallery (Water Haven, rated Moderate)