Continental Drift

Continental Drift at the Patriothall Gallery leaves a feeling of indifference and nothing else. A leaflet introduces the show with the words: "Imagine you have suffered a traumatic brain injury. You no longer remember the most fundamental things. Your mother’s name..." So it continues for a full paragraph of incoherent pretentious waffle. Battling through it, it is possible to glean that Continental Drift is a collaboration between artist Michele Marcoux and poet Sheila Black, whose aims in this exhibition are to explore the relationship between history, memory and us.

Marcoux and Black seem to complement each other well in that the works of both artist and poet show some degree of technical accomplishment but are ultimately entirely forgettable. The exhibition is confusing and it is difficult to distinguish whether this is a deliberate attempt to imitate the fragmentary nature of memory or just incompetent curation. Black’s poetry is juxtaposed with Marcoux’s thick oil and acrylic paintings. The paintings are predominantly abstract, and in fairness some of them are visually attractive; 'Departures', for example, with its obscured female bodies and swirling mass of colour and line. 'You are on one island and I on another', meanwhile, has bars across it in a not-so-subtle attempt to represent human isolation.

Some of Black’s works are interesting in themselves 'The Closer I stick to fact the more it sounds like fiction', for example, tells the story of a priest’s illicit affair with a woman and the resultant lovechild, but overall while the exhibition shows some glimmers of interest it does not warrant much time or attention.