HILL'S installation entitled ... still like dust I rise ... was made in remembrance of her brother and sister, both of whom met untimely deaths. This biographical information looms over the work in the darkened gallery at the City Arts Centre. But instead of contributing to its power, the information adds lagging to a work that seems more complex than resonant.
At one end of the room, Hill has hung a section yew tree, the smoothly sliced surface of which is sharply contrasted by its rugged, ragged outline. The gallery lighting has been programmed to vary, moving from almost total darkness to daylight brightness. The variation in lighting conditions allows the wood to appear to take two distinct forms.
In the brighter light, the shape and grain of the wood is visible, as is an oddly convoluted lifeline of grids, charts, graphs and outline CAT scans.
In the darkness, activated by an ultraviolet light, the same pattern is revealed as a luminous line along which move the ebbing pulses of soft red points of light.
At the other end of the gallery, three small frames contain what look like wiry, metal walnuts. Beneath the metal more little red lights flicker. In the two outer frames the lights flare rapidly while in the central frame the bulb flares steadily.
Even if it were possible to ignore the strict manner in which the work feeds off the artist's biography, . . . still like dust I rise . . . remains a work of potential. Although Hill is clearly seeking contrasts of ancient and modern, folklore and science, the elements of her piece always feel too self- consciously shackled together.
The grain of the yew, the techno throb of fibre optics, the night-and-day lighting effects, all provide neat images, and offer access to ideas of transience and transformation, but their combination here does disappointingly little to increase their individual impact.