Walter Oltmann’s exhibition Armour and Lace: a Bestiary at Goodman Gallery
Goodman Gallery has a great new look. Well … new for me that is, as someone who has spent 2 Covid-restricted years starved of public events and gallery visits.
Armour
The title summarized the show beautifully. Most of the images allude to armour, either in the sense of protection – spikes, prickles, wiry extensions, thorns, quills; or disguise and camouflage – insect-like colouring and body parts; or in the sense of being subtly threatening – bulky, literally faceless figures in huge menacing body suits (both fully in the round wire sculptures and wall hangings, as well as two dimensional oils, pastels, lithographs, ink and watercolour).
With a detail below. Fine wiry spikes bleed from body to exterior like capillaries that have escaped the physical containment of skin; allusions to body parts suggest sutures and aggressive invasion. Concepts of “inside” and “outside” are subverted.
Lace
Oltmann is known for his extraordinary craftsmanship and his time-intensive and physically demanding creative process. He manipulates tough wire to produce large scale works in a way which imitates weaving or crocheting, subverting both the idea of sewing and crocheting as a domestic female activity, and the idea of the medium being soft, gentle and easy to work with in the way thread is.
With details
Bestiary
Bestiaries originated in the ancient world (the sphinx is the most obvious ancient example), but were made popular by monks in the Middle Ages. A bestiary was like an encyclopedia of animals, both real and imagined, which provided allegories offering moral lessons (the unicorn). The bestiary presents an imaginary world where (as in the mermaid) “borders between the human and non-human become permeable” (Oltmann exhibition info page). Oltmann’s images, which combine insect/animal characteristics with human forms, explain this part of the exhibition title.
Oltmann’s commentary on environmental threat
Again from the Exhibition info page:
Oltmann’s images of dead or near-dead creatures … serve as memorials to animals that are not only dying, but literally “dying off” ie on the edge of extinction. Images of fossils and skeletal remains similarly function as symbols of posterity. As portraits of loss, they are meditations on the consequence and impact of environmental stress.
The pangolin is one such endangered species.
With detail:
The skeletal remains of Rover is a suitably thought-provoking way to end these reflections on a powerful, beautiful and utterly memorable exhibition.