Last Song in Silence, 2013, Gouache and pencil on paper, (image courtesy the artist)
The title of Kushana Bush's exhibition showing at Darren Knight Gallery, Last Song in Silence, reflects the ways that physical space emanates a form of silence within her series of motifs. Her gouache and pencil works have a touching quality where blank space encircles and surrounds the routine, familiar detail of our interactions with other people and objects. The absence of structure (removing walls, floors, roofs) frees the detail of the everyday and renders it singular, unhinged and poetic. The space in the works surely functions to eliminate any 'noisy' context relating to place.
One work that strays from this rule, is Handsome Paddlers, 2013 where water replaces still air, and figures (and fish) are submerged in a swirling blue. Considering the relationship between blank space in a visual world, and silence within musical composition, Handsome Paddlers in interesting in how it introduces new texture, and new sound. By contrast to Kushana's other motif's in this exhibition, the work is able to express something about the sensory interaction between ourselves and water. This is further explored in Murmuring, 2013 where water is contained and controlled in a wooden bath-like structure. Women bathe in an almost Ancient Grecian setting. Ceramic vessels and a watering-can assist the notion of containing water. Returning to the interchangeable qualities of visual art and music, Murmuring conjures the sounds of voices underwater, and aligns this with the contained expressions of communication between people. The women in the motif appear as one unit but within are contained whispers and murmurs.
Each of Kushana's compositions appear like floating islands, where people and things are captured in moments of action or exchange. This idea is used beyond art history as a way of thinking about romantic relationships as a removed, private entity. Last Song in Silence, 2013 shares the title of the exhibition. It further pursues the 'motif' in Kushana's breadth of work, placing two figures at its centre. Silence surrounds the literal motif, which surrounds the motif of human intimacy. This work reaches a kind of pinnacle where music and visual representation are aligned and focused to express an unabashed yearning for sustained, private love.
Last Song in Silence
Kushana Bush
Darren Knight Gallery
20 July - 17 August 2013
http://www.darrenknightgallery.com/
http://kushanabush.com/
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