Catastrophe Soup recently finished at the Peacocks WORM space but I managed to get down for one last look.
The show by Caitlyn Holly Main opened for the month of November and the opening night felt like a return to the old days when exhibitions spaces were rammed out the door and the atmosphere felt more akin to a house party than a stuff art event. It was a nice atmosphere to walk into but the sheer volume of people meant I couldn't really get a proper look at the work so a return visit was in order. I was keen to understand more about the work and to see how Caitlyn's work had developed since the last time I'd seen her work which happened to be the Grays Degree Show back in 2015.
Since that time Caitlyn has continued her studies down in Glasgow but has recently made a return to Aberdeen and indeed Grays where she is a lecturer in Contemporary Art Practice. How the worm has turned! But I mean that in a positive sense as Caitlyn brings fresh perspectives to the school and also some hard lessons about when academia fails and the direct impact it can have on students. This show also highlights a different perspective for Peacocks with Enxhi Mandija flexing her curatorial muscles. As with the Art Club group a few months before I asked Enxhi for some oversight on the show as I think it's great to have some background from the gallery. You can read the full exhibition text here as well.
I'd left my return visit to the last minute with only a few hours to spare before heading off on an intercontinental road trip with friends but I was determined to immerse myself in the work. The glimpses of text stencilled across the walls and the blanked out windows built up a sense of intrigue. The show text alluded to what awaits, Operating between writing, printmaking and performance, the different mediums act like many mouths speaking the same words, spitting them out pulped. In writing as in drawing, layers are traced then erased, paying attention to the residues left and what they have to say. Recurring words and signs build a highly personal, tentative yet solid vocabulary of marks that are traces of something else – images, residues, foodstuffs, each of them concentrating within it a larger sphere of meanings and implications (funnel-words; periscope-words; snow-globe words).
I'd missed the performative part with Caitlyn reading from her new book of poems, each written over a 30 day period. Taking a sculptural approach, words are pushed and squeezed, manipulated and transformed, perhaps less transformed and more traced and distilled through ephemeralization. The analogy in the shows description to chewing up the different mediums to create a saliva infused pulp takes me back to Caitlyn's degree who which proved to be a highlight that year as she explored the different mediums and tools at her disposal, sharing a vision and an immersive physical space. This show feels like a continuation of that but more refined, focussed perhaps but Caitlyn has always seemed like she knew where her work needs to go.
The artist book produced for the show is perhaps a key element, a series of short poems printed & bound, collected and presented in a limited edition volume that was hand crafted at Peacocks. The photos of its production reveal another important aspect by bringing people together, friends and artists to help assemble the books, complete with a special screen printed cover and all handbound in Peacocks. We don't often get a look behind the curtain but from the curator to the print studio, it appeared that Catastrophe Soup united the Peacocks team under a shared goal in the production of this beautiful artefact. It also marks the studios first foray into book publishing which they look to be expanding upon for 2023. I made sure to purchase a copy before they sell out, you can pick up a copy here.
Mark making, print and words are strung together both on paper and on walls of the sumptuous catastrophe. Prints hang from lace tassels while the saliva infused pulp appears to dangle like a single thread from a spiders web, red knots drawing us in like flies. It's a show that utilizes the space and Peacocks in a way that feels fresh and challenging. A catastrophe indeed but not in the usual sense but inline with the denouement meaning 'the final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together and matters are explained or resolved'.
As POST recently commented about the New Aberdeen Bestiary, these shows can be challenging and sometimes that can be good and sometimes it can be bad. In Catastrophe Soup it was good, reading about relationships, rituals, food and desires from Caitlyn's perspective, its good that it challenges me to stop and reflect a little on my own ideas around these things and to reflect on past and current relationships, challenging how we navigate our lives and also how we understand the artist. That can be the magic part as art allows us space to reflect, to learn and to experience through the eyes of another person. Too often I see the older generation entrenched in their own outdated and often toxic ideas about what life is and how it should be, to the point where so many carry the weight and burden of their parents ideas into their own lives but art can be used to break those old bonds and to carve new healthier paths.
Or maybe a saliva infused thread can be the hammer to smash those chains, delicate and powerful at the same time hanging on a wall in the Castlegate. Idea's about how people should be, how women should behave and the definitions around gender and who gets to decide what you are can be chewed up and spat out, reformed anew through stories and bold marks on tracing paper in translucent windows. Caitlyn's words pull together many threads with strong visual metaphors paired with the softness and comfort that also runs through her work. The little pea soup book of poems is a beautiful take away from a successful show which caps off a great year for Caitlyn.
Be sure to check out the latest exhibition Worm exhibition, 'The Snake' by Delaine Les Bas which runs til 25th February.
