HELEN SEAR – …THE REST IS SMOKE
2015-05-04The Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2015 presentation is …the rest is smoke by artist Helen Sear, a Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and curated by Ffotogallery.
…the rest is smoke comprises a suite of new work conceived for and presented in five discrete spaces within the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, a church and former convent in the Castello area of Venice. The title of the exhibition is taken from an inscription in Mantegna’s last painting of St. Sebastian, now housed in the Ca’ d’Oro in Venice: Nihil nisi divinum stabile est. Caetera fumus.
Ideas of mortality and temporality are explored in a series of new works in which agricultural landscapes marked for production and consumption are seen to exist simultaneously as magical spaces, imprinting themselves on the body and mind of the viewer. Sear’s photographic and video work examines the image as sculptural form whereby the artist integrates different speeds of looking, contrasting physical scale, colour and vivid material presence. The individual works resonate strongly with each other and with the architectural site of the exhibition.
Opposite – The company of trees Helen Sear (Projection Still), 2015
Exhibition runs through to November 22nd, 2015
Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Fondamenta
San Gioacchino
30122 Venezia
Italy
