| Dates: | born 1964
| | Biography: | 1964 Born in Cardiff, Wales.
Lives and works in London
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 Galerie Jennifer Flay, Paris
1998 Film Screenings, Matt's Gallery,
London
1993 Coronet Cinema, Mile End, London
(organised by Artangel Usine Freumaux,
Amiens)
1992 Galerie Jennifer Flay, Paris
1989 Matt's Gallery, London
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1999 BACKSPACE, Matt's Gallery,
London
Fourth Wall, National Theatre, Southbank
Centre, London (organised by Public Art
Development Trust)
1991 White Bones, Walter Phillips
Gallery, Banff
1990 British Art Show 1990, TSWA,
Glasgow, Leeds, London
Seven Obsessions, Whitechapel Art
Gallery, London
1992 The Boundary Rider: 9th Biennale
of Sydney, Sydney
FURTHER READING
Annette (a bookwork) and Catalogue (a
survey
of past work), Matt's Gallery/Artangel,
London 1998
The British Art Show 1990, Hayward
Gallery, London 1990
Lingwood, J. (ed.). New Works for
Different
Peaces, TSWA, Glasgow, Leeds,
London 1991 | | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Melanie Counsell is a rigorous realist.
Her mature work is based on an intense
commitment to the specifics of time and
place, although earlier installations
occasionally allowed the intrusions of
memory into the present. At Matts
Gallery in November 1989, for example,
Counsell subtly modified the existing
space of the building to convey the affect
of a previous experience. She partially
stripped back the lino, giving the room
an air of desolation. Along one wall she
created a shallow trough above which a
curtain was looped over a single wire.
Water dripped steadily from a row of tiny
tubes projecting from the wall into the
trough, then oozed from a rolled carpet
over the edge of the trough and onto the
floor. The artist's memory in this case
was of working at an institution where
sensory evidence of lost control seeped
out of every room.
In 1992 at the 9lh Biennale of Sydney,
Counsell had already adopted her more
immediate, realist strategy of drawing
only on the present moment, and
allowing the memories and perceptions
of the viewer to interact with the space
and time of the installation. Her site was
an old room to one side of the main
entrance that had been used as a
warehouse, and still contained the
original wooden lift shafts and lifting
apparatus. For fire safety reasons, the
room had long been disused, and was
closed to the public. Counsell's solution
was to build a simple glass wall
supported by a steel frame in the form of
a cross. This wall completely blocked
the entrance to the space, sealing off all
the objects and the evidence of their
use. The glass was punctured by drilled
holes in the shape of a diamond, not
unlike the speaking holes in a bank
teller's window.
At first glance the frame of the 'window'
looked like a hologram of a room, as if
the real room had become a
representation of itself. Looking through
the holes, however, one could see - and
smell - the space directly, thereby
experiencing the glass as a metaphor for
the ephemeral nature of representation.
Counsell's installa¬tions have an
indelible logic. The fact that we can
subsequently analyse our first
impression and even name the material
components that gave rise to it in no
way detracts from the poignancy of that
fleeting moment prior to recognition and
evaluation. The artist has developed a
site-specific work for a space in Liverpool.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | female | | Type: | person |
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