Tom Woolner, who is exhibiting his work at the OVADA Gallery, Gloucester Green, until January 19, is not to be mistaken for Thomas Woolner, sculptor, poet and founder-member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - he was a 19th-century man.
Tom Woolner is very much a 21st-century artist. This is quite apparent when you learn that the title of his exhibition is Going to Bakeries All Day Long, which has no obvious meaning and invites the viewer to make of the show what they will. No doubt each new visitor will place their own interpretation on Tom's wacky shapes. Although his sculptures appear to be bricks, they are not to be confused with the work of Carl Andre, whose pile of bricks caused considerable controversy when they appeared in the Tate during the 1970s. Andre's bricks were made of clay and placed with precision, whereas Woolner's bricks, which are glued together haphazardly with the foam used to insulate walls, are made from polystyrene and are as light as a feather. How else could they lean and twist into such remarkable shapes and with such casual disregard for symmetry?
Built on site, especially for the OVADA gallery, the swaying structures have been placed in a space which contrives to draw you in, past one and on to another, and all the while the viewer is resisting the temptation to touch and question. Are they really polystyrene? Is that really insulation foam? Are the forms really lightweight? Will the structures fall if I push?
Upstairs in the upper gallery, a large free-standing chimney, complete with twinkling lights to suggest there's a fire in the grate, welcomes the visitor. Here you encounter a lone cloud being pulled round and round on a track close to the ceiling. There are dirty buckets of green liquid on the floor, strategically placed (perhaps?) to catch the droppings of the carved feral pigeons sitting on the bars overhead.
Well - the exhibition left me questioning the meaning of art, but as Andrew Nairne, the director of Modern Art Oxford, often says, if the visitor goes away with questions to which there are no immediate answers, that's all very positive.
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