Eve Fowler at DCA
- Rebecca Reid
- Aug 4, 2018
- 3 min read
What a slight. what a sound. what a universal shudder.
Dreamy, ethereal and equal parts powerful, Eve Fowler’s latest exhibition at DCA is a dazzling beacon in a world of political turbulence. On entering the gallery, the space is filled with a striking profusion of materials, textures and mediums: posters, prints and billboards hang from the crisp white walls; glowing neon signs radiate fluorescent light, and a 12” vinyl record infuses the room with sound at steady intervals.
Fowler’s first major European exhibition comprises a mesmerising and multi-sensory blend of typography, poetry, videography and dreamy colour palettes. In Gallery 1, a 16mm film shows women working in an artists’ studio, accompanied by the soothing soundtrack of a rhythmic voice. Emblazoned across the length of a gallery wall are the words: Patriarchal poetry deny why. Patriarchal poetry come by… A millennial pink canvas is suspended from another pristine wall, screen-printed with the proclamation: I want to tell about fire. Much like millennial pink itself, Fowler’s work is ‘timeless, yet very now’.
The literary and poetic undercurrents of Eve Fowler’s work are deeply informed by the feminist writings of Gertrude Stein. So much so that the exhibition itself can be interpreted as a kind of feminist manifesto for queer culture and identity. Through the use of language and art, Fowler celebrates and gives voice to marginalised perspectives by challenging oppressive power structures. She borrows from Stein’s writing, working with it, against it and through it to create visual snapshots of her work. Certain words and phrases are isolated and transplanted into the 21st century context, highlighting the sense of timelessness belonging to these political issues. And the repetition of certain words and phrases creates a kind of feminist mantra with a contemporary twist.
But Fowler’s work is not purely a political manifesto– Fowler describes her latest artwork as being ‘deliberately open-ended’, or perhaps ‘words doing as they want to do’.
Like her luminous gradients of colour, Fowler’s work blends in and out of meaning, shifts between binaries and eludes categorisation. And like the contemporary world in which it is nestled, it is curiously tentative and in-flux. It fluctuates between polarities and delicate tensions: the indoor and the outdoor, the past and the present. There are tentative push and pulls between interior and exterior spaces as her work fluidly shifts between the private and public spheres. Fowler has infused urban areas of Dundee with 14 posters which become a part of everyday life, as well as providing a sense of escapism within the gallery context too. Her work was displayed in Dundee's public spaces until 30th July.
Fowler’s video work also shifts between the past and the present: with it which it as it if it is to be blends Stein’s words with the retro 16mm film to create an uncanny sense of timelessness.
A delicate balance of juxtapositions and contradictions, Fowler’s latest work is linguistic yet very visual; semantic yet un-rhetorical (at times nonsensical), and strikingly beautiful, yet subtly aesthetic. And as technology plays an ever-greater role in complicating our daily lives, Fowler’s exhibition finds its beauty in its visual simplicity, and the minimalist juxtaposition of colour and text, and this is why it’s so compelling. It offers a refreshing and tranquil retreat which proves that less is indeed more.
Yet the content behind these artworks is poetic, philosophical and infused with visual meaning. Fowler has created political meaning through image, with subtly coded and implicit messages transplanted from Stein. But she has also created unmeaning: a string of isolated, oblique words deliberately left open to the interpretation of the viewer. And it is this overt obliqueness which instils her work with a sense of subjectivity. It’s perhaps naïve to think of Fowler’s work as purely feminist, or purely political, or purely ‘queer’– it’s this kind of categorisation that her art deliberately seeks to escape. In this way, her work will always remain fascinatingly elusive, immutably timeless and, therefore, relevant.
See Eve Fowler at DCA until 26th August.
Have you seen Eve Fowler's exhibition at DCA? Let me know what you thought of it in the Facebook comments below! Or head over to the urban dundee archives for more things to do in Dundee.
If you're interested in other art and design activity happening in Dundee, why not check out my posts on the Open/Close Street Art Trails in Stobswell and in Dundee City Centre.
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