Franziska Furter gallery visit – research point part 2 (exploring coloured media project)

This post contains my reaction to Franziska’s Stray Currents Exhibition. I visited this exhibition a number of times. I was fortunate to be invited to the opening of the exhibition and was able to personally speak to the artist about her work. I made follow-up visits by myself and with different family members. I also attended an event called ‘A conversation with Franziska Furter’. This was a discussion between herself and a journalist and was in the form of a conversation about her work. A subsequent post will deal with my thoughts from that event. As I was able to hear first-hand from the artist, both at the event mentioned above and by speaking to her, most of the information contained in this log is accurate and represents her feelings about her work. My only additions are my own reactions and thoughts in response to viewing the exhibition and speaking to her.

I really enjoyed visiting this exhibition. The Towner gallery displayed this exhibition in their upstairs gallery which was simply painted white with a grey floor and left bare. The works looked beautiful against this backdrop and there was a feeling of serenity and grace oozing through the room. There were several works on display, which have been shown before but Franziska commented that how she puts them together depends on how she feels they relate to each other and the space around them. This means that each exhibition is often different even with the same works on display. Most of the works were black but there were some exceptions.

Stray currents exhibition at The Towner, Eastbourne

Franziska is influenced by Science Fiction and this could be clearly seen in the watercolours she had on display. They represented displays of energy and I think related to superheroes. The works were intricate and carefully painted. There were other intricate pieces of work which used some unusual materials. For example, fine black beads had been strung together to make a beautiful shape which was affixed to the wall (Crystal Silence V). Black nylon was wound around wire to form a cascade from another wall (Pitch). Wire had been wrapped in black plastic and then bent and wound round itself to give the illusion of barbed wire. Several of these were arranged to form the piece ‘From the corner of your eye’. There was a tower of glass and acrylic shards formed from placing the glass under a mat in another exhibition and the glass breaking and forming shards when walked on. These shards were glued together to form a tower (Ahu). This sample of the exhibition illustrates her meticulous approach and attention to detail.

Crystal Silence V, 2011, wire, beads

Pitch, 2010/11, nylon

From the corner of your eye, 2008, plastic, wire, tape

Ahu, 2011, glass, metal, wood, silicon

Despite the sculptural nature of a lot of the works, she describes her work as drawings. There were many aspects that echoed the art of drawing. The form painted on the wall resembled swirls of a pencil (Fathom V). The bunting formed a different picture when looked at from different sides (Rift). Many of the shapes produced looked like shapes used in drawing, both geometric and more free-flowing.

Rift, 2011, plastic, textile

Sanna Moore, Exhibitions curator at Towner, describes Franziska’s works as follows:

Drawing is at the root of Franziska’s practice. The sculptural works she has created for this exhibition are like three-dimensional drawings which hover within the gallery space. Sanna Moore.

Felicity Lunn, quoted from the Stray Currents exhibition catalogue, says about Franziska:

Whether in the earlier large-scale pen and ink drawings or the more recent objects made from black coloured wood, plastic or crystal, the clean, sharp lines of her work create an immediate graphic quality that, in Furter’s view, impacts more forcefully on the space the pieces inhabit than if they were in colour. Clearly delineated from their surroundings, the hard-edged contours of her monochrome forms define the space they occupy, automatically drawing in the negative or invisible spaces around them into the main body of the exhibition. Simultaneously, Furter’s installations employ the white walls and pale floors as if these were the paper support for the drawing whilst focusing attention on the characteristics of the gallery itself. There is a constant shift between the two and three dimensional, between the objects that function as abstract drawings in space and the flat images that convey depth as though been formed on a computer screen. Felicity Lunn

I think this was a superb exhibition and I really enjoy looking at Franziska’s work. She used a great deal of detail to produce simple stunning pieces of art work and displays them in a manner that seems to connect as a whole. It is interesting how she does not use a great deal of colour to convey her ideas but when used are effective. I like the way that even the flat pieces of work had a real three-dimensional feel to them and a sense of space was created. I thought there was also an interesting unending theme running through the exhibition. The painted swirl had no beginning or an end (Fathom V). It was impossible to see where the bunting began and ended. The barbed wire strands did not appear to have a beginning or an end.

In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed viewing Franziska Furter’s work and it taught me a lot about the use of space and how separate entities can relate to one another. I also learned how, although great attention had been made to detail, the overall effect was simple, uncluttered and easy to comprehend. It also showed me how important drawing is to an artist, whatever form their art work takes in the future.