→ “A Weightless Entanglement” by Rachel Segal Hamilton.
New Art Projects is delighted to present ‘Hunting Razorbills’, a new solo show by Kadie Salmon featuring a remarkable series of 9 hand colour photographs shown alongside a three-screen video work.
“The sea contains infinity. Its lunar ebb and flow, its ripples and roar speak of boundless possibilities. On a gentle day, currents rock you in a womb-like embrace. When storms rage, it is ferocious, unforgiving. The sea is birth and death, abundance and abyss, adventure and tragedy. Familiar as a mother to those whose lives unspool on its shores, and yet mysterious still, alien. Its darkest depths are the closest thing we have on Earth to another planet.
No wonder that mythology swirls around in its surf. Every culture tells tales of ocean deities, monsters, spirits and shapeshifters. Many represent that society’s ambivalent views of femininity. The sirens of ancient Greece are portents of temptation, their enchanting melodies leading men off course, while nereides are nymphs, winsome goddesses with little power but benevolent intent. Mermaids myths emerged thousands of years ago and later popularised by Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. In order to dance with the prince, she must relinquish her voice, exist and feel every step as though “ treading upon knife blades,” ultimately, she cannot win the prince’s heart, nor summon the strength to kill him so she stabs herself. Needless to say, this bloody and tragic ending is omitted from the Disney version.
Hunting Razorbills, offers a new take on these narratives in the threefold form of female figures who recur throughout. This trio – with legs, not fishtails – might be read as siblings, lovers, friends, a collective or three conflicting versions of the self. Their limbs overlap, converge and dissect – a foot here, fingers there – so that it is difficult to discern where one individual begins and the others end, nor for that matter what they are doing. Are they caring for each other? Is there a sinister undercurrent at play? Those soft hands that might pull you gasping out of the cold North Sea could just as easily plunge you below the surface, hold you there.”
Taken from “A Weightless Entanglement”, an essay written by Rachel Segal Hamilton.
40 x 40cm