COMMA 13 Martin Westwood

About

Martin Westwood often works with mass-produced materials collected from the corporate environment ' photocopies, carpet tiles, vinyl stickers and newspapers ' which he transforms to form the highly crafted components for his installations. Westwood's images and objects construct fictions that expose a strangely familiar, yet faded, human environment, which recalls the idealised corporate imagery of the 1980s. His complex sculptural installations are concerned with the investigation of how spaces impact on human behaviour from both social and psychological perspectives.

Continuing to develop the subtle relationship with the space in which he shows, Westwood uses the specific architectural features of the atrium of Bloomberg SPACE while responding to its functional context. For his new commission, several sculptural elements are set in tension with a short video sequence, shown on a single screen. As visitors walk into the darkened rear gallery of Bloomberg SPACE, they encounter a voluminous structure placed on the floor occupying the footprint of the ceiling above them. This structure functions as an inverted ceiling, whose depth suggests the existence of another space below. Within the structure, various small windows visible from the sides display intriguing sculptural arrangements that seem to have been buried and forgotten.

Two more elements complete the installation. A pair of water-coolers have been cast in concrete and placed in the balcony space, suggesting the idea of doubling, and therefore echoing the mirroring of the structure with the ceiling above. On the wall, a screen broadcasts unedited stock footage showing a couple walking by a small poolside decorated with rocks.

The exhibition will be open on Sunday 18th October, 11.00 - 18.00.