Review: MICHELLE DEIGNAN: Posing as a subject amongst subjects

‘Bland observations transformed into something meaningful’; the audio from Deignan’s video installation sums it up. But the courage of this exhibition is in the genuine ambiguity fostered as to whether this has in fact been achieved, the work juddering between the poles of The Bland and The Meaningful, The Saccharine and The Profound.

We presented with cliché after cliché – gaudy pink and white blooms, grainy projections, impassioned musicians, maudlin narratives, etc. We are told that this is a study of ‘swallowed syntax’, of ‘now unspoken tricks that are accepted as the normal address’. We are given the opportunity to watch the ‘casual snapper’ under the illusion of free-will, but all the time churning out, replicating, a pre-determined set of postcard images.

Deignan has some serious guts, prompting viewers to walk away unsure if the artist herself is even in on the joke. But in this, they are (or are they not?) the butt.

Review by Thomas Keane