British Sculpture in the 21st Century

Molly Smyth: With Lung

Molly Smyth: With Lung

Molly Smyth

With Lung

2010

foam, glass, plastic & fabric belts, window fan
170 x 25 x 53 cm
unique

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With Lung, With Throat is a pair of works in which frustration is the breeding ground for meaning. Composed of materials and forms never leading to an assured conclusion, these elements undermine our natural assumptions about objects and materials.

Two tinted glass arches dissect foam blocks into cross-sections, preventing one from ever seeing a unified view of the work, as half of it always appears through a 'screen,' a cross-section simultaneously disrupts the careful composition of the stacked blocks.

Approaching With Lung, With Throat, one is confronted by two similar forms whose bulky shapes and dark colour give the impression of weight. Incorporating simple objects - a window fan and elastic belts -- items that are not meant to function as 'found' objects, but rather as plausible parts of the composition, further confuse what one is actually seeing.

The elastic belts force a compression of the foam, proving it to be lightweight and yielding, indenting and narrowing the foam's otherwise straight outline. The window fan appears to have imposed some sort of unnatural force upon the foam, as its surrounding areas look to have been blown away, it's hanging cord enticing the viewer to pull it once again.

The simple intervals of the blocks that make up With Lung, With Throat have been squeezed, sliced and even seemingly blown away, producing an object that is fraught with tension and rich with possible meanings.