Show One Of Each: Maia Conran

4 February - 12 March 2011

For the final instalment of the Show One of Each season g39 presents new work from artist Maia Conran. Maia’s observations of everyday objects or situations give her work an uncanny familiarity, rooted in its institutional aesthetic. She interprets these situations using existing structures of communication and knowledge – in this case the library, instruction manuals, the school classroom and the gallery space.

The film and other work for this show includes the newly made film Course, new bookwork Form and sculptural intervention Pin. Each work deals with spaces that are disquietingly empty of inhabitants. The libraries and classrooms are bare, the books unread, the seats unoccupied. The empty library becomes home to animated footstools; the empty classrooms are recorded as pamphlets of remembered lessons - accurate accounts of room geography that map changes in modes.These darkly minimal absences are leavened throughout by touches of humour.

Her works take place as repeated or paused events, contained within the depicted spaces. She draws attention to the thresholds and boundaries of these spaces – calling into question what is inside and what is outside. She demonstrates a darkly humorous concern with boredom as a paradoxical state in which the present can be questioned. Through the depiction of still moments, use of repetition and changes of pace she refocuses our attention on the ordinary.

This show was curated by
  • Michael Cousin

    Programme