Ruth Claxton Lands End
2008 - 09
Ruth Claxton's Lands End is an evolving body of work presented as a sprawling installation of steel structures housing and exhibiting a series of modified porcelain figurines. The structures themselves are nested rings of steel alternately open or filled with chromatic plates or mirrors extending and disrupting the exhibition space. Commissioned by Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK and subsequently touring around the UK and beyond, the installation is developed and reconfigured at each outing, responding to the specificities of each site that it visits.
The structures are peopled by kitsch figurines collected by the artist from car boot sales, eBay or junk shops and then modified through interventions that frequently see the heads, faces and eyes of the figures concealed. The blinded, obscured figures present themselves in uncanny tableaux shifting our attention from the grand, visually dense, sculptural complexity of the installation at large to the minute and carefully executed details.
