Michele Horrigan / A Very Reliable Performer
Opening Friday September 15, 7pm
Ritter & Staiff present A Very Reliable Performer, new video and photographic artworks by Irish artist Michele Horrigan.
A very reliable performer refers to a postcard caption of Geyser, an active hot water spring in Iceland where Horrigan was resident earlier this year.
Playing with expectations of touristic consumption and fulfilment, Horrigan sets up a theatrical relationship with Geyser. Her video loop constantly waits for the spring to erupt into the sky. An accompanying photograph offers a taster to keep the onlooker intrigued; yet their interest is never seemingly rewarded with a moment of climax.
In a second video and photographic installation, Hooper Swan, ideas of perception and disillusionment are again explored. The beauty and grace of the Hooper Swan in a still image is broken down by a video piece of the swan's shrill sound as it feeds and fights amongst ducks and seagulls.
Horrigan's double-takes seem to scratch on the edge of ideas of artistic representation, simultaneously presenting the lures and pitfalls of preconceptions of images.
