Edinburgh-based artist Andrew Gannon shows a series of new works created from clusters of hollow modular forms cast from his own left arm. Using plaster as if in preparation for a prosthesis, Gannon creates wearable casts that become increasingly unwearable as they are bound together, their functional ungainliness becoming a sculptural elegance.
Gannon has a congenital limb difference, and describes his own prosthesis as ‘near me, but not part of me.’ His object-sculptures test out a space between limb and independent sculpture and challenge the assumption that prostheses should offer functional and cosmetic ‘normality’, allowing us to question some of the oft-repeated discourses that surround disability.
Many galleries, including the Fruitmarket, are trying to address disability, often through our engagement programmes. This exhibition is one step towards giving disability more of a central space in the exhibition programme.
Speaking ahead of the exhibition, artist Andrew Gannon said:
This new work comes from a decision to centre my own disability in my practice. That is not to say that it is ‘exclusively about’ disability, but that it comes from a position of lived experience of a particular disability.
In regular performances throughout the exhibition, Gannon will draw using a limb which incorporates a long bamboo pole and is based on the drawing sticks used by Henri Matisse to loosen up his style for drawing murals. The drawings and limbs will be incorporated into the exhibition as the performances progress.
Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley said:
It is exciting for the Fruitmarket to be able to show Andrew Gannon’s work as it moves beyond performance to incorporate sculpture. I am interested to see how our audience respond to these intriguing, material presences.
Andrew Gannon Impressions
10 December 2022 – 08 January 2023
Open 7 days 11am – 6pm.
Fruitmarket, 45 Market St, Edinburgh EH1 1DF