Megan Huffadine: The silence collector's notebook

Layering story upon story and exuding a sense of time’s slow passage, with ‘the silence collector’s notebook’ Megan Huffadine has once more created collections of sculptural objects whose patina is as much half-forgotten memories and ritual use as it is varnish and paint.  Despite the ‘silence’ referred to in the title of the show, Huffadine’s items whisper of buried narratives.  Half-recognisable forms catch our eye, but their purpose ultimately eludes us: the collections are “weighted with possibilities” (1) and require contemplation in order to interpret what they are murmuring.

Black, brown and red form the dominant colour palette in this series of works, enhanced here and there by burnished bronze and, in ’an invocation’, a porcelain-like cream.  Huffadine’s use of this limited colour scheme leaves space for the stories of each object to be told.  They speak volumes, be it through a void carefully delineated and contained, or in a fullness swelling out from the wall, or with an item that simultaneously encompasses and displaces space.  Closer inspection reveals subtle tracery on the edges of some pieces that complements the rich surface finish and precise, delicate carving.  The forms themselves are reminiscent of familiar things – beetle carapaces, hand tools and weapons to name but a few – but they defy identification.  Free of set meanings, the objects are imbued with a totemic symbolism suggestive of rites and ritual, generations of use and solemn purpose since lost in a dim history.

Linked by repeated elements of form, line, colour and finish, individual objects do not compete for the eye, but each one quietly announces its presence as part of a whole.  Both individually and as a set, Huffadine’s collected objects possess a solidity of scale which enhances the sculptural nature of the work in its entirety.  It is easy to see in ‘a page from the silence collector’s notebook’ how the play of light and shadow both across and within a work reinforces this idea.  The artist’s carefully thought out composition utilises the negative space between objects as part of the whole and the edges of a collection are clearly delineated.  Huffadine sources her forms of display from collections both institutional and personal, and her works’ success derives in part from a strong sense of order that underpins each one, playing on the human desire to gather, collate and classify.

Standing in front of ‘Bloodline’, we are very much aware of a system of classification and, although its exact reference points may escape us, it is obvious that we are engaging with a considered, beautifully executed work of art that encourages engagement and provokes discourse rather than the dusty contents of a forgotten Wunderkammer displayed on a wall.

1. Megan Huffadine, Artist’s Statement, 2011