THE HANDSTAND | JULY 2006 |
Life again. Light again.
Leaf again. Love again. June 1st - July 1st 2006 The somewhat poetically arcane title of
a solo show by Garrett Phelan at mother's tankstation in
June - drawn from an obscure nineteenth century text on
bird watching - belies the fact that this body of work
harbors a complex, thought-provoking and powerful
polemical meaning. Phelan is best known for his
site-specific drawing installations and his idiosyncratic
radio broadcasts of regurgitated 'received' information,
and less known as an avid bird watcher. However, in 'Life
again. Light again. Leaf again. Love again.' he combines
his passions for sound work, drawing and bird watching to
explore the possibility of fantastic and nightmarish
mutations in our ecological environment. In his own words Phelan's
extra-curricular activities fall short of making him
"twitcher geek" (google that!). Bird watching
for Phelan is more akin to a self-taught pastime, or a
private indulgence, a way of spending reflective time
alone with and in nature, where, however, he finds
increasingly disturbing things. Phelan uses the familiar
tools of the naturalist - careful pictographic drawings
and the softly spoken radio voice-over - to chart and
record fictionalized sightings of new mutated bird
species to Ireland. This finely-tuned and elegant work
has both a humorous intent, as well as a deadly serious
dark side; which tangentially, but forcefully makes
reference to the potentially horrific impact of global
pandemic on the largely migratory bird population of this
country, not to mention the psychological impact and
climate of fear created amongst us humans. Imagine a land devoid of the sight and
sound of birds! Interestingly this is exactly the
opposite of what Garrett Phelan does. Rather, he
powerfully instills the idea of 'absence' through the
envisagement of a new world where beautiful new creatures
have evolved because of, and despite of our human
destructive negligence, our 'nature'. In the bigger
picture, Phelan examines our paradoxical relationship to
Nature; our romantic (and largely hypothetical) love of
Nature is self-evidently out of kilter with our wanton
carelessness towards it. Perhaps in the new natural order
Phelan imagines, the lower animals have grown beyond us,
they are more beautiful, serene but out of reach. Over the past few years Garrett Phelan
has enjoyed significant national and international
attention. Recently his controversial Black Brain Radio
project was broadcast on 89.9Fm and exhibited
simultaneously at Temple Bar Galley and Studio, and IMMA,
Dublin. Phelan's installation Lung Love was featured at
Manifesta 5. San Sebastian, Spain in 2004. |