Art
Accessibility and contemporary debate are central themes at the newly opened Cultural Speech gallery. The gallery’s second exhibition Art which opens on 9 September gets down to art basics. Art will provide themes that reflect the artist’s public concerns. The pieces exhibited echo the social debates fuelled by urge, instinct and impulse, as personally experienced by the two featured artists. Playing devil’s advocate, they provide new ways of examining the world around us. Sarah Engelhard’s work explores the human marks left on the planet. In her series of photographic works entitled ‘Plastic Drift’, she provides images of objects washed up onto the beaches of Indonesia and Curaçao. Isfrid Angard Siljehaug’s series ‘Untitled’ takes us back to a bygone age, with images applied to large paper and wall surfaces. Artists today continue to be inspired by history, at the same time reflecting upon issues playing central roles in today’s society. With Art, Cultural Speech endeavours to demonstrate the imperative role of art, with its power to encourage us to look at our world through different eyes. Both artists incorporate contemporary themes into their work, transposing the narrative into unusual and idiosyncratic visuals. With the works of photographic artist Sarah Engelhard and visual artist Isfrid Angard Siljehaug, the gallery intends to present fascinating and powerful imagery. Sarah Engelhard exhibited her ‘Still Wild’ photo series in the Nederlands Fotomuseum in 2010. Art will showcase her ‘Plastic Drift’ series, containing images of plastic litter that had been washed up onto beaches by the ocean. The artist collected the objects, taking them back into the water to make her photographic images. Similarities in the colour and form of the plastic objects and the background in which they are positioned combine to provide curious and fascinating visual material. Her images are purposely arranged, yet very much randomly realistic in the sense that they contain plastic that had once been littering the ocean. Engelhard, who is also a biologist, is fascinated by the human trails left behind by people in their natural world. Her ‘Plastic Drift’ series visually portrays plastic debris in an aesthetically pleasing way. She demonstrates the appealing quality of the objects, whilst at the same time drawing attention to the problem of environmental pollution.