Date: June - November 2014

Location: Bristol, UK

Project: Public Art Commission

Partners: Creative Spaces, Bristol City Council Arts Development

Artist: Fran Quarterman

We are pleased to present an immersive installation by emerging Welsh artist, Fran Quarterman, for the Autumn programme of Bristol Creative Spaces at The Control Room on Redcliffe Bridge.

A disused, semi-circular shaped building situated on Bristol Harbour’s bascule bridge, one of the main commuter thoroughfares, The Control Room provides an interesting architectural space for ephemeral work. Quarterman’s site-specific installation includes a series of small sculptures, embedded with repeated cast ceramic forms intricate enough to be instantly recognisable as visual references to well-known cultural phenomenon.

The immersive installation manipulates scale, colour and materials drawn from popular fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks. By working with a palette of white, the artist explores the notions of innocence, virtue, purity and cleanliness.  By subverting these ideas Quarterman presents the shadow side of life and the psyche itself; creating a tension that reflects the underlying dark nature of these tales. Re-visiting these themes through adult eyes, the works explore a sense of the uncanny and symbolism embedded deep into the collective psyche. 

By reimagining the narrative, the works become mutations that evoke an uneasy connotation around ‘childism’; which examines the emotions and psychology of paradoxical fables, that although presented as innocent, actually condition children to the idea of mistreatment, this in itself presents an incongruous metaphor for the viewer.