| Biography: | Lives and works in Liverpool
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1999 In My Ladies Chamber: Revisited,
Castelfield Gallery, Manchester
1998 Art and Ethnography, The Customs
House, Liverpool
1995 In My Ladies Chamber, Liverpool
Museum, Liverpool
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
1998 Showgirls, selected billboard
project, Sheffield
1997 The Doctor Duncan Art Show,
Museum of Liverpool Life, Liverpool
1997 Studio-Time, Bluecoat Gallery,
Liverpool
1996-97 The Young Professionals Open
Exchange Exhibition 1996, toured
Britain and Spain
1996 Changing Room (site-specific
installation), 75 Victoria Street Liverpool
Box This, Turnpike Gallery, Leigh,
Lancashire
The Travelling Suitcase Show, Stoniers
shop window, Liverpool
Exchange Exhibition (with M.REAM
Studios), Melbourne | | | Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | | Date of source: | 1999 |
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| | Description: | Amanda Ralph has created an
installation with three life-sized effigies
draped with hundreds of found objects.
She is an inveterate collector of bric-a-
brac and her studio is a veritable
Kunstkammer. Some objects are
gathered together into functional storage
arrangements, such as brushes and
bristles, while others are more
specifically arranged in glass cabinets or
on shelves that may already be displays,
or may later transmute into some other
configuration. Every available space is
occupied by a proliferation of materials
and textures. As in a curiosity shop, the
accumulation of these objects is
enormously compelling. The absence of
any reference to their original functions
or past owners allows the viewer to
reflect freely on their possible uses and
histories.
This kind of collecting might be seen as
a manifestation of desire itself: a need
expressed without any specific object.
By ordering and rearranging matter one
gains a measure of solace against the
longing for final resolution: or against the
desire to find and keep the perfect
object. In this sense Ralph's studio is a
site of ritual. Her effigies bring to mind
West and Central African fetish figures.
These fetishes are traditionally
associated with healing. Objects are
attached to the core figure to direct the
power of the spirits to the specific need
of the patient.
The figures act as a conduit between the
spiritual and material worlds. Many of
the Congo figures have mirrors in their
stomachs: a reference to the great river
that separates this world from the other.
The shiny surface of the mirror is a
metaphor for passage between the two
worlds.
| | Description Source: | "Trace, 1st Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art", Festival catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 1999 | | Gender: | female | | Type: | person |
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