KATHLEEN WEST'S exhibition is actually described as an installation; no doubt there is justice in this, but the copoets can also be seen as individual works. They are, in effect, ceramic sculptures, in white, black and red clay - all from the soil of Arizona, where the artist has worked recently. They half lie, half stand on the floor in a patterned relationship which is eloquent in its way, but they could also, I fell stand or lie alone in their own right (though the three pieces of Flow are obviously parts which make up an organic whole).
The majority of them are hollow, with a certain shell like look, or perhaps like exceptionally large, sun and wind weathered bones. The orifices emphasise their hollowness, and even their apparent fragility - which is rather misleading, since in fact they are solidly made and reasonably heavy to lift. The work called Accumulation differs from the rest, since it is made of glass and porcelain.
The shapes are organic and faintly recall Arp, and perhaps Hepworth, but the orifices - some vulvular, others rather like the broken necks of old primitive pottery vessels give them a distinctly different character from the usual run of abstract sculptures. They stress their vulnerability, yet have a certain tensile strength which lifts them above the category of purely passive, lie on the floor sculpture.
