Exhibitions Christchurch

EVAN WEBB

Extensum/Extensor Pauline Rhodes

Once again Pauline Rhodes has shown a keen and sensitive articulation of space in constructing a large installation sculpture in the Stewart Mair Gallery of the Canterbury Society of Arts.

This gallery is particularly challenging for installation sculpture because it is a large, raw space with prominent architectural features and limited light control. Recognising these factors and accommodating them is essential. In constructing Extensum/Extensor, Rhodes draws on her previous experience in using it and takes account of its structure and open nature. Consequently her installation complements the space and is visually very successful.

Two broad bands of paper run down the floor for over fifty feet, almost the entire length of the gallery. Rust-stained in oranges and browns, these bands provide a ground of quiet earth-tones and patterns. Rising obliquely from this ground plane are thin, javelin-like shafts which have been painted vibrant, fluorescent green. Their linear quality, colour and attitude give them a sense of rapid, thrusting movement much like new spring growth. The sharp contrast between the sixty or so wooden shafts and the paper ground plane is well controlled by balancing the density of the former with the expanse of the latter, fining together with a subtlety not usually associated with fluorescent paint.

Such quiet visual surprise is a feature of Rhodes's work: ordinary materials transcend their common associations — paper becomes earth and wooden stakes metaphors for energy. Paper and sticks can be regarded as essentially massless materials — that is, paper is planar or two-dimensional and sticks linear or one-dimensional; neither one is regarded ordinarily as three-dimensional or space-filling. Yet, in combination, Rhodes manipulates them to occupy and activate the whole area, changing our perception of these materials and imbuing them with new content.

Ex-tensum/Extensor closely resembles a similar work with the same title which Rhodes completed at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery earlier this year. The recurring use of similar materials (some are re-used from previous worlcs)and thematic structure de-monstrates Rhodes's concern with her art being activity and process-orientated rather than object-orientated — that is, she is more interested in the activity of making an installation than the product alone.

An obvious part of this activity and process is inherent in the materials themselves — for example, rust-stained paper is achieved by the degeneration of one substance giving rise to another. One activity nourishes another. Staining paper by leaving it in contact with oxidising steel plates is a relatively slow process and the result is deeply etched into the paper. On the other hand, the wooden stakes received their superficial coating of paint relatively quickly. The actual production of the colours — the oxide stain and the fluorescent green paint — is as much part of the installation as the quality of the colours themselves; and although these processes are subtle they can be inferred from what we see.

Less obvious are those non-exhibited activities to which Rhodes makes oblique references through titles of works, notes and occasional comments. These extra activities or projects are significant and make up the greater continuum of her art-making commitment, of which the exhibited piece is only a part. Unfortunately, it is difficult to perceive what other actions or events Rhodes is referring to through her work alone.

Often the titles of works suggest wider references, as is the case with Extensum/Extensor. 'Extensum' is a conjunction of 'extension' and 'summation', implying (somewhat ambiguously) the result or culmination of some greater, on-going activity. Rhodes intends the installation, and particularly the ground plane, to represent the idea of 'extensum'. So, loosely interpreted, this work is part of a larger production.

This interpretation is further endorsed by the term `extensor'. Anatomically, an extensor is a muscle which straightens a limb and the stakes represent extensors by implying a straight, thrusting movement. More interesting is the suggestion that Rhodes herself is the extensor — the muscle (metaphorically speaking) which rolls out and sets up the work for us to see.