Anna Barham and Bea McMahon Warp and Woof by Hailey Maxwell

Cats, Bea McMahon, 2011

Although rich in conceptual content, Anna Barham and Bea MacMahon’s first joint exhibition Warp and Woof somewhat remains an enigma. The artists share a fascination with the complex systems that are the underlying mechanics of the universe, having both studied mathematics before exhibiting as artists.

Held in Glasgow’s CCA Warp and Woof explores metaphysical issues using a variety of media.

Cats, Bea McMahon, 2011

In her video Cats, MacMahon explores the difficult subject of theoretical physics. In the clinical, overexposed film we see and hear the rhythmic thudding of a cat’s paws as he walks on a grained wooden floor.

The film invites the viewer to make comparisons between various naturally occurring patterns and systems while offering no narrative and no tangible plot. The lack of explanation, limited footage and near silence of the film is a reflection on the ambiguity and complexity of the topic and suggests that the ideas are not verbally tangible – being only expressed acutely aurally and visually through observation.

Barham’s work is more easily accessible; her MDF sculpture Arena, while not particularly aesthetically pleasing provides space for visitors to sit and listen to the rather fascinating audio piece Return Leptis Magna which is a reference to a Socratic text and features the artist reading anagrams of the work’s title.

Arena, Anna Barham, 2011

The listener becomes caught in the tape which reverberates around the white gallery like a chant. What seems nonsensical quickly becomes profound as we fixate on particular words and sounds.  Constrained writing and conceptual art are often complimentary and Barham creates a captivating and engaging piece.

While frustrating and somewhat lacking in reward initially, the silent and difficult exhibition successfully reflects the impossibility of human’s being able to fathom the laws and rules which govern our existence. The show allows some insight and offers the opportunity to experience these systems through a diverse range of media by capturing moments of art that share these metaphysical dimensions.

Arena, Anna Barham, 2011

Notes on the Artists:

Anna Barham was born in the UK in 1974. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, in 2001. She works in a variety of media, including sculpture, performance, video and drawing. Barham has exhibited internationally and within the UK, including in the exhibition Stutter, Tate Modern, 2009.

Anna Barham works in a variety of media including sculpture, performance, video and drawing. Her work is built on the fluid possibilities of language and forms, elaborating seemingly limited starting points into a paradoxical freedom. Barham has had a long running interest in the use of the anagram and has compared the building blocks of cities to the basic units of language, alphabets and words, and their ability to construct new forms.

Exhibitions include A Splintered Game, Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm, 2011; Sharp Surface (with Sarah Chilvers), Arcade, London, 2011; Panoraming, 401 Contemporary, London, 2010; Anna Barham, International Project Space, Bournville, Birmingham, 2010; readatglimpseen, Arcade, London, 2009; solo project with Four at ART 2007, Dublin, 2007 and Trod Silver Bog Again, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2005.

Bea McMahon was born in Ireland in 1972. She received a Masters in Visual Arts Practice from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art and Design in 2007. Prior to that, she completed a primary degree in pure mathematics at Trinity College Dublin, 1994, and a Masters degree in mathematical physics at University College Dublin, 1997.

Bea McMahon, who studied mathematics and physics before turning to art, uses video and drawing to explore the complex relationship between our inner lives and the reality of the outside world. She explains this process quoting the physicist Werner Heisenberg: ‘not a precise language in which one could use the normal logical patterns; it is a language that produces pictures in our mind, but together with them the notion is that the pictures have only a vague connection with reality, that they represent only a tendency toward reality’.

Exhibitions include Trinity at Flat Time House, Peckham, London 2011, Nothing is Impossible at The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh 2010, Two-fold at the Green on Red Gallery 2010, True Complex at Void (Derry) and The Curated Visual Artist’s Award, The Douglas Hyde Gallery (Dublin) all 2008. She has been awarded a residency at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam beginning in 2012 and the Curated Visual Artist Award in 2007. She is represented by the Green on Red Gallery, Dublin and is included in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Office of Public Works and the Arts Council of Ireland.

Exibitions Dates: Saturday 8 October – Saturday 19 November 2011, Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 6pm

Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA),

350 Sauchiehall Street,

Glasgow,

G2 3JD