Patricia Ferguson

Each Little Scar

★★★★☆

Curated by Brenna Horrox
On until 6 October 2024

No medium is better suited to anxiety and dread than the menacing dark line of the copperplate print. The late Ferguson’s 1980s graphic and charcoal works trace life in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Fear and loss left deep scratches in the faces of the women and children whom these works catch in moments of great trepidation. In one, a knock on the door wakes up a mother’s basest of instincts. In another, a liberatory political banner is a deadly trap.

“There is a gun in her home, and she is afraid”, marks a print titled Ireland. There is no defiance here, and no resolution in peace, either. Ferguson’s later works veered into media abstraction. Three sizeable plates of copper scoured seemingly at random and bearing signs of rust are hard to view through the gallery’s window. This isn’t on purpose, but it gives the show respite.

Elsewhere, the display reveals an anxiety over the status of prints as worthy art objects. A bizarre contraption of steel and distressed wood inspired by Ferguson’s subjects serves as a counter for her smaller coppers. It needlessly compensates for a deficiency not manifest in the work.


notes and notices are short and curt exhibition reviews. Read more:

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Dayanita Singh at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

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Singh’s pictures cold have been made by at least three other Frith Street artists.

Mohammad Ghazali, Trilogy: Then… at Ab-Anbar ★★★★☆

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Repetition and framing are photography’s greatest tricks.

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji at Sweetwater and Studio M ★★★★★

Christopher Aque, Alexandre Khondji

★★★★★

Aesthetic cognition or crossword puzzles only rarely bring such perverse pleasure.

Entangled Pasts at The Royal Academy ★★☆☆☆

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Who could have thought that these mantras would turn into rote?

Anna Barriball at Frith Street Gallery ★★☆☆☆

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New Drawings

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The eyes may be the windows of the soul. To make an aphorism of the reverse needs more than shadow-play.

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