us as stars, as horses - Bus Projects
If you read my writing on Held, Altered at No Vacancy a couple weeks ago, you’ll know I had tried to go to Bus Projects, but the world was truly against me getting there. Maybe I should have taken that as a sign, but alas I tried again this week, and actually managed to make it in to see us as stars, as horses. Featuring work by Sophie Coe, the show is a collaboration with Kamilaroi curator Tabitha Glanville.
I was wanting the show to fulfil my horse girl dreams, and Coe’s paintings did. They reminisce on the girlhood Barbie and Saddle Club of it all, in an unsettling, dreamlike way. They are a memory of a pure white horse that visits maybe in a dream, that you can’t quite picture again once waking. Glowing a radioactive neon pinky purple, they remind me of the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling as a kid. Coe’s paintings seem reflective of Sasha Elage’s photographs that I’ve been seeing all over instagram for the better part of two years, and loving that whole time too. Either emerging from black backgrounds, or standing amid fields of wildflowers, the forced flash photography feel of Coe’s paintings is heightened by the 0.5 wide angle-esque distortion of these horses' long noses and large faces. Distorting, unsettling, yet whimsical, and joyful, these horses are a memory of girlhood and the feminine.
My issue with this show isn’t with the works themselves (clearly I’m a fan of these paintings) but instead with their presentation. The space they’re displayed in overwhelms the works, obstructing them, obscuring them. There's a heavy black crushed velvet drapery that covers the floor, walls, and ceiling, and swallows the paintings as it swallows the room. The body of work in this show does not fill this gallery space. It's a big room for only five paintings that are on the small size, the largest only measuring 40 x 30 cm. Instead of letting the paintings be lost in a white cube, they’ve become lost in these great swathes of fabric instead.
The blue/purple/pink glow of the horses reflect into the second room of the gallery. The skeletal horses painted on the floor shift and dance as the colours change from the low hanging bulbs. The 3D glasses effect drawing out different parts of the paintings as the bulbs cycle through the colours overhead. This room feels like it’s been wasted. It’s disjointed and disconnected from the rest of the show. Coe’s paintings from the main room would have been better in here - inviting the intimacy and connection of being displayed in a smaller space.
I really wanted to like this show. And I think it has potential! It just doesn’t deliver, and sadly doesn’t showcase Sophie Coe’s paintings in a way that lets them speak. The show is on at Bus until the 28th of June, if you’d like to go make up your own mind if you agree with my take.