Saelia Aparicio – ‘Your consequences have actions’

Posted on by The Gryphon Web Editor

Saelia Aparicio’s latest work was commissioned especially for the Tetley and she took full advantage of the quirky layout of the gallery, to maximise the space.

The whole exhibition revolves around ideas of how pollution is affecting the human body. For example Aparicio’s huge drawing on the wall of the gallery depicts human bodies, who have taken off their skin to leave behind their skins. This to me, was beautifully done, as the drawings were so simple being in black and white but so finely detailed. In the foreground of this, lay human bodies squished into hand painted, boxed shapes. This reminded me of how fragile the human body really is and was named ‘Be Humble’.

Finally, her work extended into an animated video named ‘A Mysterical Journey’ in which she explores more deeply the different effects of pollution. You find yourself twisting and turning through colourful veins, intestines, organs etc. as the body depicted in the animation digests a number of everyday objects such as cars, sunglasses and knives.  The animation in this piece was perfectly done and used so many different vivid colours that it made the human insides beautiful. Although I’m not sure this was factually correct to the human anatomy, it did however make a really visually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing video.

My favourite piece in the collection was a number of car doors hanging from the ceiling. This instillation allowed you to look through intestines and stunning illustrations placed in the windows at more of her wall drawings.

Her work was also accompanied by various works borrowed from Manchester Whitworth Gallery’s ‘The Musgrave Kinley Outsider’ collection. This features a number of artists from all over the globe. For example Judith Scott, an American born artist who is deaf, mute and also has Downs Syindrome. Although she only began as a working artist at age 44, her sculptures of made from household objects wrapped in wool have also been featured in iconic galleries such as the MoMA, and so to have her work in the Tetley seemed surreal.

From visiting the exhibition, I would never have guessed that this was Aparicio’s first major UK exhibition, as the work was so well made as well as curated.

The exhibition runs up until the 28th January.

Holly Radford

(Image courtesy of The Tetley on Twitter)