Daphne Wright

Frith Street Gallery is pleased to announce a solo show of Daphne Wright. This is her first show at Frith Street Gallery.

At first glance Wright’s works might be seen as finely wrought environments of natural beauty. However, on closer inspection these natural arenas turn out to be monochrome simulacra modelled in plaster or tin foil which harbour disquieting moments. They resist the experience of seduction and transformation that they might seem to promise and hint at a more sinister mood of displacement and isolation. By incorporating sound into almost all of her works, Wright adds another dimension of the uncanny to them.

Domestic Shrubbery, an intricate plaster cast of a repeated floral pattern often found in domestic wallpaper, alludes to the home and its relationship with the outside world. The florid latticework creates a barrier which suggests both shelter and confinement. Small, yet alarmingly realistic casts of human hearts are interspersed within the idealised flower motif. A soundtrack of a (human imitation of a) cuckoo runs through the work – the repeated delivery seemingly mocking the viewer.

Other works by Wright incorporate fragments from Edward Lear’s nonsense poems or limericks – creating spaces where mimicry and narrative collide to tell circular stories. Indeed, Indeed is an environment of large structures reminiscent of a stage or film set. Yet the work mimics the flatness of a theatrical set and a pre-perspectival illusion of space and the apparent substantiality of each of the structures is belied by the strips of insubstantial tin foil it is made from. This mimicry is echoed by the contrary rhythm of the chain rhyme (Deed’n deed’n double deed/ I sowed my garden full of seed) that plays through it. The rhyme starts confidently but soon starts to oscillate backwards and forwards between progress and procrastination.