Claire Brentnall
Samantha Donnelly’s first major UK solo show at The Cornerhouse, Contour States explores the objectifying nature of the modern media, in particular its representation of women. Wandering around this exhibition, the works on display almost appear as mutations of one another: evolutionary creatures that have spawned by splicing plastic, metal, faux fur and glossy magazines. I wouldn’t say that the alien objects conjure images of the human form, but suggest more of a displaced humanity, with the false nails, eyelashes and tights scattered amongst the debris: the remnants of a person (a woman?) once present.
With various components of fluorescent wires, photographs, magazine cut-outs and plaster casts precariously balanced upon one another, or hanging together with bulldog clips and vices, the works were simultaneously hard-edged and exquisitely fragile. They are inviting, tempting viewers to prod and poke the squidgy stuffed stockings and pet the spider-shaped fur, but once reeled in, the sharp cut angles and jagged corrugated plastics ward off potential threats to their equilibrium so much so that The Cornerhouse didn’t really need their ‘Please do not touch’ sign.
My personal favourite sculpture consisted of a large piece of polystyrene, beaten and bashed through until the inner substance of the board was scattered over the floor of the gallery, a trail of blood seeping from the victim in the form of a bright orange piece of fabric. This, for me, is where the beauty of these works lie: in the overt display of their creation. Delicate and measured or violent and uninhibited, journeys around and into these works reveal their birth, life and death.
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