Fiona Crisp: Subterrania

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Newlyn Art Gallery is pleased to present Subterrania, a specially commissioned solo exhibition by British artist Fiona Crisp, which explores a series of very different underground worlds. Crisp's compelling images are selected from a series of works developed over the last six years and will be exhibited at Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall from 13th Feb 2010 through to 17th April 2010. One of the key works in Subterrania was created in collaboration with Geevor Tin Mine near St Just in West Cornwall, with one of the Geevor series going on display at the mine for the duration of the show (www.geevor.com). The other images in the exhibition were made at various European locations, including early Christian catacombs in Rome, a lead mining museum in County Durham and a Second World War underground hospital in Guernsey. The show also includes two new works made at Boulby, on the North Yorkshire coast, which have been created in response to a working potash mine that houses a laboratory dedicated to the search for dark matter, an invisible and elusive substance that is believed by astronomers to hold galaxies together. The disparate locations for these images were chosen by Crisp both for the sense of physical power they evoke, and the fact that their original purpose has changed. Now opened up to very different users, they bring into question the complex relationships between heritage and tourism, science and history. Crisp is known for making large-scale photographic installations that explore the relationship between photography and architectural space. One of the central themes in her work is the gap between physical experience and visual perception: between encountering a space and the subsequent visualisation of that scene.