Heart-worm, oil on canvas, 200 x 300cm, 2023
You are enough, you are sufficient, you're going to be ok, oil on canvas, 90 x 90cm, 2023
Things we lost in the Fire, oil on canvas, 90 x 90cm, 2023
The Earth Digests, mixed media installation (old, broken footballs, thread, stuffing material, yard-sticks, rivets, photograph, book interventions, gas masks), approx 3 x 3 x 8 meters.
This Dark Storehouse, Thomas Brezing – Ardgillan Gallery (12 August — 23 September)
By David O’Neill
Outside the gallery there is a scaffold. Pipes have been bolted and clipped together, their angles and lines creating a sense of both aesthetic and functional change. This metal structure alters the space, its purpose shifting from courtyard to geometric foundation. With its inevitable deconstruction, the environment will return to its original form. It seems apt that through this transient and fleeting lens we visit This Dark Storehouse, a new solo exhibition by German-born and Dublin-based artist, Thomas Brezing. Set in Ardgillan Gallery, this hybrid exhibition questions our seemingly perpetual obsession with growth, consumption, and the interdependent relationship these obsessions have with both our legacy, and the time we have spent on the planet. Through a series of paintings and mixed-media sculptural works, Brezing explores these delicate interconnections by offering us a cracked, unnerving mirror with which to view ourselves.
Descending the staircase of this almost 300-year-old house, the aforementioned Storehouse is an imposing proposition. We are presented however, with a dynamic and multi-faceted exhibition that incorporates painted work, cross-generational images, and a “repositioning of discarded, pre-loved materials.” In fact, throughout these works, the sense of transition and change is palpable. We find ourselves in an unknowable, liminal place. The finite nature of time, and how we use it, is drawn upon to great effect. Questions are posed about how, and where, we fit into the world. Brezing places us at the apex of a relationship between humans and consumerism and as we enter the gallery, stooping under the stone archway, the nature of his vision is laid bare. It is both stark and visually confrontational.
Across five oil paintings, themes of grief and change are explored. Visually, the works have an urgency that teeters close to despair, yet there is no conclusion, no definitive darkness to drag us under. Instead, we receive salvation and hope from two works, You are Enough, You are Sufficient, You are going to be OK, and Heart-worm. The latter is a large-scale piece that is equal parts arresting and dazzling, an almost revelatory explosion of light that suggests our position on the planet may yet be tenable. The painting is the culmination of a decade’s work for Brezing and feels cathartic in both its execution and size.
In The Earth Digests, we are asked to evaluate the interconnection of space, matter, and the beings that consume the two. Here, old footballs are reimagined and repurposed. It is transformative, the materials occupying a space between the physical and the earth which we will all eventually return to. The work, meticulously stitched and threaded, embodies a sense of change and assimilation. These materials, mass-produced and expendable, are presented as the intricacies of our digestive system. We pass through these tubes and tunnels, exploring the underbelly of our obsessions. This work is supported by a mixed-media installation which combines everyday items such as yard sticks, books, and photographs to great effect. The significance of these pieces, within and between the digestive tract, are galvanising. They are whispers and probes that nudge us towards the heart of this exhibition.
Standing at the centre of this piece, there is an acute sense of revulsion, having become all that we devour. Interestingly however, the materials used to create a number of these works have a balancing effect. Images of Brezing’s grandparents dressed in solemnity on their wedding day, measuring tools from past generations, hats and paraphernalia; these offer a counterbalancing subtext, delicately steering us towards our cyclical relationship with time, and the repetition of generational mistakes.
The themes develop across a number of shades and timbres with the range of work on display having a layered, nuanced effect. By incorporating painted work alongside sculptural pieces, we feel a sense of immersion in this world. Within this exhibition lies a deep contradiction. The environment these works create is a skewed and uncertain one, equal parts consumerist hellscape and redemptive poetry. The imbalanced nature of our consumption and waste is presented as both cautionary and beautiful. Being confronted by the waste we produce is distressing, yet the balance of colour and composition these works present shows that hope remains —a crack somewhere within this vast darkness.
In This Dark Storehouse, Brezing and gallery Curator Aisling Dunne have produced an exhibition in which the nature of human life and the volume of waste we produce is brought into sharp focus. “It is a reflection of the interconnected nature of the earth and the creatures that inhabit it. Using these discarded remains creates a para-truth environment, a hybridisation that speaks to the transactional relationship of humans and the decay that we leave behind.” Within the walls of this grand, old structure, we see these transactions play out in a circular and inquisitive way. The scaffold remains outside. Its presence is a shimmering echo of the messages within the gallery itself. This work and its presentation lays bare the decaying fruits of our relationship with the environment around us. At times it may be an unsettling experience, but it is compelling viewing, nonetheless.
