‘The Space Matter Problem (50 x 40 x 20) completes Gill’s set of CERN pieces. It takes off from cast forms of some banality: a carry-on suitcase designed to fit the stated maximum measurements allowed by airlines, and a star-shaped perfume bottle. Those are subjected to changes in the manner of a scientific experiment in form: the plaster casts are folded, fragmented, have holes cut into them and have been thrown down stairs. They’re covered in chemical indigo – the colour traditionally used for night skies in illuminated manuscripts – and peppered with starry traces of mica. The multi-form results are arranged according to scale on tables which are actually the art-meets-maths-meets-academia surface of blackboards with chalk grids.
There’s a fiercer energy implied here than in the magnetic pieces, and the damaged suitcase may suggest that an on-plane explosion has occurred. But that’s not out of place: there is an obvious violence to the Hadron Collider’s extravagant electromagnetic enforcements. And the evolution of the atom bomb will always lurk behind such experiments.’
Extract from catalogue essay: ‘Alison Gill – To See A World’, Paul Carey-Kent
