In 2008 Anna Barriball put up a number of posters on the London Underground. They consisted of various texts which she discovered had on the back of found photographs: for example ‘on my way to a birthday party’ and ‘sixty miles of beautiful views’. Dislocated but hinting at personal narrative, it was up to the spectator to take up the baton.
In contrast the drawings one in this show make us very conscious of how long they must have taken to make. She has talked about how the interaction between making and thinking is at the core of her practice. The are almost sculptural but, in the same way as the found texts, they open up a space in which we can escape to wherever we want to go.
The large three channel video Fade consists of views of landscape. In it she employs the technique of graduated fading which was first used in early cinema. The results make us feel as if we are out in a windswept area and yet the sensations they provoke are simultaneously strangely hallucinatory.
Anna Barriball is a challenging but rewarding artist. I recommend this show.
Anna Barribal ‘Fade’ is at Frith Street, 17-18 Golden Square. London W1F 9JJ until 11 May.
