Slippages at Paradise Works, Salford

Presented at Paradise Works in Salford, Slippages will consist of a series of works that skirt between the boundaries and blur our understanding of real and imagined space, the familiar and the uncanny, and authenticity and artifice.

Manchester-based artist Sarah Blaszczok’s photographs of delicate paper installations read like windows onto empty stage sets. Each scene is constructed through a series of layers and shadows that draw the viewer’s attention into the image, creating the impression of a dimensional, enterable space, yet which our bodies remain physically excluded from. The perception of where the work lies becomes strangely confused, oscillating between the image, the scenario it presents, and its constituent parts. There is a sense of action waiting to unfold but none arrives.

A 2015-17 Max Mara Art Prize for Women finalist, Ana Genovés’ sculptures are inspired by photographs that she takes of real-world objects and architecture, yet are coloured by varying degrees of strangeness. This manifests in various forms; whether through a vague impression of utility unmatched by apparent function, the suggestion of weighty solidity undercut by the revelation of a flimsy materiality and hollow centre, or the difficulty of distinguishing between the work and the space in which it is presented. As with Blaszczok’s photographs, Genovés’ sculptures seem to invite a form of engagement that is simultaneously denied by the fact that these are non-interactive works.

At the heart of the exhibition lies an interest in the encounter between the viewer and the work as both artists seek to play upon, complicate and subvert our expectations. An interesting pairing between two artists at different stages in their career, who share a willingness to collaborate and experiment in terms of presentation, this should prove to be a disorientating but highly engaging show, organised by independent curator Zoe Watson.