For our September ONE WORK event we are delighted to host an online discussion with Louise Barrington unfolding the themes behind her work ‘Sylph’ (2021) on Thursday, 28 September from 7 – 8pm. Book your place for the online discussion here.
‘Sylph’ is available to view online via the LUX Scotland website from 1 – 30 September, 2023. We recommend watching the film in advance of the discussion, you can view the work here.
‘Sylph’ was one of the first films to be made responding to Louise’s on-going project Four Seasons: making the invisible visible, which focuses on the changing landscape experience on Orkney over the calendar year. The title Sylph comes from the 16th century writings of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of air. The invisible markers we experience daily such as sound and scent connecting us to the everyday rhythm and patterns, we individually experience within the landscape knowing or unknowingly. These markers are the ephemeral moments that place us in the present moment. Sylph observes the everyday dance that we perform as we move through the seasons.
ONE WORK is a series of online events that focus closely on a single work. These generous discussions provide an opportunity for an artist to present a recent work and talk through how the work came into being. Each work is available as a month-long online screening, followed by a specially commissioned written response that serves as documentation of both the exhibition of the work and the discussion that focused on it.
Image description: A film still layering several images over each other. A dancer is silhouetted against a blue and red sky, one arm raised like a wave, the sky is filled with birds and the background is a flat snowy landscape with a sheep wire fence.
About the artist
Louise is a multidisciplinary artist based in Orkney using film, dance, textiles, and sculpture to focus on the aesthetic and environmental aspects of the landscape experienced over the four seasons. Where she lives overlooks Scapa flow, it’s a continuous moving image, the flow of movement, rhythm and patterns from the changing season informs her artistic practice. The vast landscapes of Orkney and the in-between moments of dusk, dawn, and twilight, creates a restrained colour palette within her work. The in-between-ness resonates with the Japanese concept of Ma, Orkney is an edge environment that exists in the in-between spaces.
Closed Captions
Part of ONE WORK
ONE WORK is a series of online events that focus closely on a single work. These generous discussions provide an opportunity for an artist to present a recent work and talk through how the work came into being. Each work is available as a month-long online screening, followed by a specially commissioned written response that serves as documentation of both the work and the discussion.