'Reliquary': The work of Duncan Cameron & Anouk Mercier

Associated media

bo.lee gallery presents the mixed media findings of intrepid explorer Duncan Cameron and introduces an artist new to the gallery, Anouk Mercier. These two artists are united by their presentation of specimens and fragments of narrative in which they both seek to create an altered interpretation of the world, embracing escapism from the rigours of that which surrounds us.

Inspired by Darwin, Wallace and Bates, Duncan Cameron’s illustrations, sculptural works and natural history specimens are housed beneath glass domes or secreted in antique boxes as he toys with the notion of curating and re-defines the concept of collection, value and display. Exploring themes of collecting and obsession, the work exploits and navigates a deliberately unclear line between the gallery and museum. Familiar yet unexpected, the pieces engage notions of a world changed yet consistent.

These collections of specimens in a contemporary setting, free from the rigours of science yet rooted in the aesthetics of the Victorian collector scientists, champion the overlooked, organizing and arranging it. Prioritizing the aesthetic over categorization, a certain nostalgia echoes through the work taking us back to a time when the world seemed a larger place. Artefacts and specimens are gathered and rendered new with copper coatings or gold leaf as an altered echelon of classification is implied. Insect specimens and bones are renewed as an ossuary endowed with a new curatorial splendour.

Born in Paris but now based in Bristol Anouk Mercier draws influence from her time living in Switzerland and Victoriana. Her work centres on the fabrication of narrative to immerse the viewer in a fanciful world. Relying on the nostalgia of Romanticism and mythology to depict melancholic worlds, her drawings, created using air brush pencil and a solvent ink transfer, celebrate both the power of the imagination to escape the mundane whilst also exploring the darkness that often lurks behind idylls.

Presented as illustrations of an enigmatic tale, her drawings range from tenebrous Animalia portraits, to haunting landscapes and mysterious ‘mini-worlds’, laced with decorative flora. Mercier invites viewers to engage with this fantastical world whilst yet creating the illusion that it can only be observed through a distancing window and in doing so, the viewer is positioned as an entranced voyeur enticed into formulating a narrative based on the visual fragments presented.

bo.lee gallery, 1 Queen Street, Bath, BA1 1HE

15 October – 03 November 2012