Lockets
as part of group exhibition Volume II; We went down into the silent garden
Quivering in Quarantine (online gallery)
Madeleine Thornton-Smith
2020
The frame acts as a device for separating, ordering and territorialising the world. The inside of the frame, rather than showing us a representation, provides the viewer a mediated, fragmented view of reality.
Kant argues that a golden picture-frame only exists ‘so as to recommend the painting by its charm’: it is merely supplementary (Platt & Squire, 1987, p. 40). A hierarchy of support and work is thus developed: the frame is an ‘accessory’ to the true ‘art’. Yet Derrida argues the frame exists beyond its status as a boundary – it can also be a space of experimentation and opportunity.
Collage creates further rupture, a place for unreal spaces. Ceramic frames inspired by Peruvian marcos are portals through to the recent past. Lockets to carry memories of simpler times.
Images by Madeleine Thornton-Smith
