Katharine Dowson, The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester - Myriad

Katharine Dowson: Myriad
The Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
24 July - 8 November 1998

A new exhibition in the Whitworth's Mezzanine Court will provoke visitors to look at the beauty of everyday details and the hidden landscapes within nature and the human body. Katharine Dowson will be showing 'Myriad', a wave curtain of optical lenses, alongside other recent works.

'Myriad' is a curtain made up of lenses of differing focal lengths so that the visitor sees a different view through each lens. The view intensifies details and illuminates the act of seeing as you become aware that what you see is not necessarily the truth. The curtain will bisect the Mezzanine Court in a gentle wave running parallel to the red-brick Victorian facade, providing a unique sensory experience.

Katharine Dowson is also interested in life forces, and the ambiguous response we have to images of our body's biology. Her 'Optic Box' series of fragile organic shapes are both sensual and repulsive at the same time. The boxes hang on the wall and use light from within to illuminate the glass, wax and resin images on display. 'Link', a recent work, involves photographs of belly buttons magnified to such a large size as to be unrecognisable and distorted.

The artist's work seduces the viewer with its surface beauty, but a sense of discomfort remains as we are unsure what lies below.

Katharine Dowson was last at the Gallery as part of Bittersweet last year and previously in Whitworth Young Contemporaries in 1991. She has had solo shows in London and Norwich and her work is included in the Saatchi Collection.

THE WHITWORTH ART GALLERY
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6ER
www.whitworth.man.ac.uk