A Cloth Over A Birdcage
Exhibition by Annalaura Palma and Elin Karlsson. Curated by the Jakob Kroon Gallery, Gallery Dodo, Brighton 13th of May- 26th of June 2022
A Cloth Over a Birdcage’ is a series of collages by Annalaura Palma that generously lends its name to this exhibition. We met one evening in a busy café. ‘I have trouble with happiness’ she said then looked down at the table. I can't remember if she then brushed her fringe to the side or took a sip of tea. But I completely recognised the trouble she was speaking of, so I scribbled it down without taking my eyes from the collages.
Annalaura looks for textures in the rhythm of shape and colour when making these works. Not to communicate an idea, but to speak about feeling. In the work she imagines emotions felt, only visually. Using scalpel, glue and paper, she works in the soft glow of her room, the window loosely draped with a cloth.
Working with her arrested sculptures it is precisely trouble that Elin Karlsson remembers. She says: ‘I need to see it from all angles’ Elin continues: ‘you can’t get in and around stuff in a photograph.’ Yet, she wants to create something which seems like a stilled moment. In these works, humour, sadness and sometimes messiness are suspended, all together, transforming the lingering memories in a process that starts to look like a way to work with, but also through, the trouble.
