Introduction, 'Circling the plane', Eleanor Amor and Lorna Quinn.

Eleanor's sculptures and Lorna's paintings each investigate speculative imaginations and dreams. Key concepts drawn upon in these works consider human fantasies, subconscious fears, concerns and illusions. Though their works are disparate they share a connectedness in their thematic underpinnings and visual language. Each references German Expressionism through their notable colour palettes and use of light and shadow.

‍Eleanor’s delicate and spindly metal sculptures, while particularly elegant and exact in their execution, evoke a sense of unease and precarity. The influence of German Expressionist film set design is evident to those who are familiar with it; exaggerated lines and shadows, severe angles, set against warped and elongated structures, give the affective impact of terror and disorder. Eleanor makes tangible manifestations of existential dread and creates an environment where the notion of, or familiarities associated with, home offers no sanctuary.

Lorna’s artistic influences span broad art historical periods from medieval panel painting to Renaissance painters as well as Romantic artists. Her works are precise and controlled and reflect her desire to make clear order of what she notes to be the “ambiguities of the present”. The canvases attempt to become sanctuaries of shelter for those seeking solace in the absence of societal cohesion. Though in enacting this Lorna suggests that the work has the opposite effect and instead they become a reminder of the shallowness of our ideals. That they have an alienating impact. By rendering literal contexts as vessels of containment, Lorna confronts the inherent contradictions between fantasy and reality.

‍Despite not sharing the same medium, both practitioners present meticulous works, they are complementary and considered when set together and encourage a broader dialogue that reflects upon landscapes, possible environments, architecture, home and shelter. Converged here, each artist has outwardly portrayed their internal desires, unsettling anxieties and their insecure or tenuous relationship with their current realities.
- Isabella Hone-Saunders

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Eleanor Amor's artist statement: For this exhibition, I've constructed a series of sculptures that capture the unsettling nature of anxiety dreams. Drawing inspiration from German Expressionist set design, the architectural landscapes depicted in Giorgio De Chirico’s metaphysical paintings, and common dream motifs, I aim to present sculptural works that touch on themes of feeling lost, trapped, or watched.

Anxiety dreams often induce a profound sense of entrapment, where individuals grapple with feelings of being lost, pursued, or surveyed. These dreams manifest as distorted spaces, labyrinthine environments, reminiscent but altered locations and elusive destinations. For this exhibition, I intend to recreate this sensation through sculptures that feature uncanny paneless windows, staircases with no destination, and the intricate pathways of a labyrinth within a hallway.

Each artwork is designed to evoke a sense of foreboding and claustrophobia. By creating works that reference home, each piece provides an eerie sense of familiarity without a sense of safety.

‍Lorna Quinn's artist statement: In this body of work, I’m interested in the illusory nature of desire and the fantasies that house it. Responding to the ambiguities of the present, I crave a more legible order. I imagine a dwelling place, a vessel, in which everything is visible and truth is absolute. By making pictures of literal contexts, containers I can orient myself in, I aim to exteriorize and then subsume a fantasy of wholeness. 

The fantasies we use to propel forward our lives are undermined in their contact with it. These visions remain intact within the imagination, but when touched by the real are exposed for their vacuity. My paintings are intended as vessels of shelter, but, embodied, instead form an enclosure around the void, as desire vacates and takes up residence in the next object.

Eleanor Amor and Lorna Quinn have been curated into a two-person exhibition in Seventh's Gallery 3 by Isabella Hone-Saunders.