Hereford Salon: HS Gallery - 'Drawn from the Well': Promenade

HS GALLERY

Felicity Powell: "Drawn from the Well"

'An installation of etched mirror glass drawings placed with in four renaissance wellheads in the sculpture courts at the V&A Museum. The mirror Drawings placed within the wellheads are reminiscent of water. They recall the function of the wellheads and how they were once focal points for everyday life. The well heads themselves are historically specific artefacts: one of them stood outside the house of the painter Tinctured, but the mirrors reflect the objects and architecture that surround them now, drawing these current surroundings into the centre of each.

The etched drawings in the mirror glass reveal themselves as the viewer moves around them, changing as the angle of reflection changes, fleeting and elusive against the weight of the stone. Two of the mirror drawings are of transient moments, ripples and tears, held suspended. Another describes zooplankton, the invisible life in water made visible. In another an image of a tree lies across the surface, the roots mirroring the form of the tree branches. There are direct visual connections, allusions and echoes between the drawings, the reflected and inverted surroundings and the wells heads themselves. Seen from the bridge that runs across the gallery, the great height and space in the gallery is extended down into the wells'

Felicity Powell 2002