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Wednesday 20 February 2008
EDWINA ASHTON
What qualities arouse pity. ....Are these interrupted by human intervention?
It does not seem to me that Edwina Ashton's work does arouse 'pity' as such. From her elegant drawings to the short films, Ashton seems to try to encompass a range of aspects of all of human existance, from humour to hopelessness, though mundane scenarios. That these human qualities are exhibited, certainly amongst the films shown, in exaggerated insect-like creatures in human scenarios, are incongruous. A bug struggling to read a newspaper in the wind or a dung beetle pushing his ball of dung up the stairs of a semi, only for the ball to roll down, once he has got it to the top. Incongruity does not necessarily arouse pity.
Ashton's insect figures reminded me of the figurative puppets used for Paula Rego's triptych, 'the pillowman' based on the dark play by Martin McDonagh. Both Ashton's short films, and plays are scripted, directed, performed and viewed. Ashton work has been described as tragicomic. If pity is evoked it through dramatic device.
2 comments:
It does not seem to me that Edwina Ashton's work does arouse 'pity' as such. From her elegant drawings to the short films, Ashton seems to try to encompass a range of aspects of all of human existance, from humour to hopelessness, though mundane scenarios. That these human qualities are exhibited, certainly amongst the films shown, in exaggerated insect-like creatures in human scenarios, are incongruous. A bug struggling to read a newspaper in the wind or a dung beetle pushing his ball of dung up the stairs of a semi, only for the ball to roll down, once he has got it to the top. Incongruity does not necessarily arouse pity.
Ashton's insect figures reminded me of the figurative puppets used for Paula Rego's triptych, 'the pillowman' based on the dark play by Martin McDonagh. Both Ashton's short films, and plays are scripted, directed, performed and viewed. Ashton work has been described as tragicomic. If pity is evoked it through dramatic device.
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