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Burning
Memory |
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Wall
of Fire
Lily Hibberd’s installation entitled Burning Memory plays with the history and nature of cinematic experience. Using spatial and temporal dynamics and drawing upon the loaded symbolism of a burning house, Hibberd reconstructs the psychological space(s) of cinema. The exhibition consists of fourteen paintings and a video that reveal different aspects of a house on fire. The video establishes the tone of the viewing experience. Sliced together are generic burning houses presented in black and white format, sourced from documentary footage and film. A succession of flaming moments that advance hissing and crackling from one frame to the next. Emanating faintly from beneath the fire footage is music that adds a melancholic and personal dimension to the work - dulcet sounds which resonate through the installation.  The content of the video is loosely arranged around four movements — the camera approaches the fire, enters the interior of the house, leaves the house as it is collapsing and then escapes the area in a fade to black. This structure cleverly mirrors the processes of spectatorship involved in Hibberd’s exhibition, for as viewers we too approach the work (fire), enter the blackened environment of the interior space and are drawn into the drama of the paintings. The overall effect of the video is subtle and evocative, working to trigger the spectator’s memories and experiences of housefires. Its washed out tones exist in stark comparison to the colourful theatricality of Hibberd’s paintings. The interior exhibition area is a reconstruction of a cinema space: dark and immersive. It is an environment that heightens sensory and spatial stimuli. Bright, bold and seductive the paintings enfold the viewer in a drama of colour and content. Hibberd employs cinematic devices such as scale, perspective and focus to control the response of the spectator. The first painting Housefire (burning), for example, is a small work that depicts a sharp distant view of a house enveloped in flames. While the third painting Into the Fire (running) is a large scale, close up and out of focus depiction of a blurry inferno. These changes in size, in cropping and in the movement from sharp to blurry affect the reception of the image within the sequence of works, promoting the spectators active engagement. With the movement across and between each canvas there is a shift in time and an awareness of spatial arrangement. However, time seems to pass through and beyond these paintings as they begin to visually coalesce. The logic of moving from left to right around the exhibition space is rapidly displaced by the demanding nature of the work and its powerful and intense colour. The spectator is literally confronted by a wall of fire.  Hibberd uses fire as a metaphor and device, referencing its destructive power and emotive potential. The paintings act as fragments, as a series of impressions that constitute a set of relations. By operating on a similar level to film sequences which are related and distinct visual moments, Hibberd’s paintings encourage the viewer to look for connections, differences and repetitions. She uses the painted surface to enact some of these associations and entice the viewer to closer inspection. In Fire Swept (northerly wind), for example, the thickening of sweeping brushstrokes emulates movement. While in Collapse of Dreams (skeleton) the haptic quality of the surface is smooth and alluring. The changes in technique are expressive, referencing the subject matter of each painting and shaping a relationship between their constituent parts. The titles work in the same way. Each title is suggestive of a singular moment yet the images are clearly part of the one fire. Hibberd’s Burning Memory eloquently showcases the ability of the painting medium to engage as cinema does in the evocation of a psychological space. Referencing some of the devices of cinema —still, close-up, distance shot, cropped, blurry and sharp — she creates a dynamic environment where interacting physical, perceptual and psychological spaces are built, re-built and collapse. Natasha Bullock, 2001 |
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