REVIEW
Tim Shaw installation
FE McWilliam Gallery
Banbridge
WHEN sculptor Tim Shaw finished art college in 1989 his mother suggested he write to Frank Edward McWilliam to ask his advice on a future career.
He laughed at the idea – why would an esteemed artist like McWilliam take notice of a somewhat naive college student?
However, McWilliam looked a Shaw’s portfolio and immediately contacted him. “I was impressed; we met in his home in Holland Park, London, and he poured me a beer – on a Sunday morning!”
It was an important meeting for the two men from Northern Ireland and marked the beginning of a remarkable career which has taken Shaw around the world with exhibitions and installations and has seen him inducted into the Royal Academy of Art.
His latest work is back home in the FE McWilliam Gallery in Banbridge. It is the vision of a seven-year-old boy and his mother caught in a bomb blast on Bloody Friday.
There’s a hum in the air as you approach the big heavy door into the space which houses Mother, The Air Is Blue, The Air Is Dangerous.
As you pull it open the sound hits you, like a wailing banshee at first; then, as you stand, you begin to hear the colours within the sound, the sirens, people in anguish, falling masonry.
In front of you lie the remains of a cafe in chaos, tables upturned, chairs on their sides, brown trays hanging in the air.
Once your eyes adjust to the smoky semi-darkness, you can pick out a jacket over a chair, a single shoe, handbags abandoned.
Look up and on the walls are shadowy figures running for their lives – you can just make out the shapes of people stumbling; some don’t get up, others wave to indicate a way out. It’s mesmerising.
Shaw has dedicated this work to local victims but also to victims around the world; as he says, this scene could be anywhere.
:: Until January 30 (femcwilliam.com).
