Memory Stack


Sarah Menzies

My hanging prints confuse ideas of space, they systematically and deliberately distract from whatever form it might be supposed to take. Their constant busyness gives the feeling that emptiness is here absolutely packed. This work is interested in the connections between things rather than the objects themselves. The stacking of each fragmented work and the way objects are trapped on their surfaces presents a series of disjunctive categories rather than a coherent whole. The stacked streamer format allows for a series of unexpected connections and the reading of each portion is extended rather than constrained.

The construction of the past inserted into the present disruptive fragments give rise to new works which seek to de-familiarise the familiar. The threaded structures refer to the frustrating or calming pursuit of knitting that is patient repetition of a physical act even when the sculptural gesture that results is fitful and edgy. The vertical stacks can be seen as the embodiments of the individual or as constructions resembling the totemic in so far as the different stacks can be taken to represent the separate members of a clan, each one of which must adjust itself awkwardly to its consanguineous neighbours in a contorted family tree.