Fergal Stapleton

And A Door Opened.3.

Fergal Stapleton

Stapleton’s varied practice (including painting and sculpture) is bound by a concern with elucidating various phases of the fictive, the apparent and the real. His And A Door Opened assemblages, holding in equilibrium the fantastical with the blunt actualities of junk, exemplify this in their reordering of things known, producing new and surprising value out of meagre means. The red-black glow emanating from the dark vitrines, reminiscent of photographic darkrooms, gives the effect of an image half-developed, caught between latency and realisation.

These sculptures by Fergal Stapleton trigger a certain range of half-recognitions: DIY science fiction props; orreries assembled from hi-fi store kit parts; minor events at Earth’s orbital margin. Their precision and impoverishment are exactly what make them so astoundingly magical: each one embodies a universe. Inside their dark Perspex enclosures amongst the loops of electrical cable, sit two or three modest items – a concrete chunk, a Styrofoam disc, and other matter found or made, some of it revolving perpetually, slowly under red light-bulbs, creating wondrous parallel microcosms from humble materials.

Search the Saatchi Gallery website

SUBSCRIBE TO EDUCATION NEWSLETTERS