Rebecca Turner describes her work as “some parasitic creature[s] feeding off our architecture.” Dumbstruck, a ball of greyish-pink paper pulp protruding from the gallery wall, seems to have rested there on its way up, like a lone balloon after a children’s party. And yet its tense and muted energy, as the title suggests, create a darker atmosphere, where the apparent lightness of the paper ball, like something spat out of a biro in a classroom, seems suddenly weighty and uncontrollable. The sculptural occupation of physical space – a thing that takes the place of another thing, like the human body itself – has, here, something of the sinister atmosphere of an apparition in a dream: its uncanny position implies an inversion of conventional gravity, turning the gallery space into something unstable and treacherous. Like a boulder rumbling towards an unsuspecting cartoon character, Turner’s work makes light of physicality, its threats absurd, its implications darker, more troubling.

Text by Ben Street