Nicholas Folland is an artist with that rare gift of producing works that mobilize new ways of seeing. From polished branches and engine coolant containers, to crystal ware and wry comments on cartography, Folland uses everyday objects to create realms for exploration, speculation, and contemplation. In his latest body of work, On Edge, Folland deftly combines and imbues objects with dynamism and metaphorical power, making peripheral states of experience and perception tangible.
In Composition for vocal ensemble 2016 a choir of 21 sculptures shiver and hum. Comprised of cast concrete containers, polished branches, and small motors, each work has been carefully tuned to achieve a precise balance of movement and calm. The branches emerge from containers that bear warnings and instructions – ‘pierce here,’ ‘POISON.’ Reaching upwards, they appear like a stand of strange trees from an otherworldly forest. The mechanical whir, click, and hum of the motors evoke a chorus of cicadas, while wires accrue and coalesce at the base of the works like exposed root systems. Electricity, the new arterial energy supply for these once living branches, is harnessed and revealed.
From the concrete casts that look as if they could be made of porcelain, to the branches that shine like polished bronze, Folland’s handling and choice of materials subverts established notions of ‘preciousness,’ elevating concrete and wood to the realm of prized materials.
Traces of industry and human endeavor within the landscape also surface in Composition for vocal ensemble, revealing another enduring element in Folland’s practice. It was in the wilds and waterways of the parklands that lie on the edge of Adelaide’s CBD that the artist collected the branches and containers that form this work. Having been cast, some of the containers now bear the cracks of an arid, dried-out landscape, recalling the scars of a land that has been subject to seismic pressure – perhaps alluding to both the physical and metaphysical forces that affect both objects and people alike.
In On Edge Folland invites the viewer to enter those elusive and transitional states of experience that sit on the edges of our perception: that hazy space between wakefulness and sleep, those moments where you enter a trance-like state. For Folland, these states of altered perception, sensory experience, and awareness are often induced by the Australian landscape. “In the desert there is a stillness on the surface, it seems like nothing is moving. But really everything is alive. It’s humming with movement,” Folland says contemplating the hypnogogic spinning discs of Blind faith – tomorrow never now.
The work is profoundly mesmerizing. Its composition produces a floating effect, like bubbles rising from a wall, or heat haze rising from the copper-colored earth of the outback. As the bronze discs spin, they pull the viewer and the room into themselves, at once reflecting, refracting, distorting, and containing whatever falls into their line of sight.
Grounded in a close observation of and engagement with the Australian landscape, Folland presents a uniquely antipodean perspective on the long-running traditions of opto-kinetic art in Blind faith – tomorrow never now 2016. This eloquent work takes its place in a long line of formal investigations that can be traced back to the optical machines and experiments of Marcel Duchamp.
As the bronze discs spin, inducing the hypnotizing, disorienting effect of heat shimmer, the mechanically regulated movement of Composition for vocal ensemble emulates the random push and pull of air currents rustling through a stand of trees. Folland’s subtle activation of these objects converts what could otherwise be a static experience into altered sensory experiences of space and time. In this way, On Edge reminds us that in Folland’s hands quotidian objects are given an agency of their own, and transformed into extraordinary sculptures that invite new ways of seeing.
Jenna McKenzie 2016
Press release courtesy Tolarno Galleries.
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