Sorcha Dallas

The contradiction harnessed by the title of Kate Davis’ exhibition – ‘Build Cracks’ – is made manifest by work that renders everyday object strange. Like the Surrealists, she seizes upon the poetic potential of familiar items – in this instance, tools for exchange and communication such as microphones and the Yellow Pages – while robbing them of their function. Dali’s melting clocks find a companion in a pair of ceramic headphones draped over a towel rail; but, unlike Dali, Davis seems less concerned with libidinal charge or symbolic meaning than with creating delicate fissures between recognition and understanding. Scrambled reading is encapsulated by a music stand on which gridded, figurative drawings are presented like a score; does one take the work at face value or attempt to interpret the marks as musical notation? Are we being encouraged to sing our responses into the ceramic microphones dangling, unplugged, near dozens of sockets in what presumably was once an office? This catalogue of obsolescence would seem merely obtuse were it not for the dialogues that emerge in this carefully calibrated installation. The dirty yellow glaze covering the microphones matches the colour of the walls which, in turn, relates to a series of images lithographed on to sheets from the Yellow Pages. Consisting of spectacles sprouting from vases, these weird still lifes partially obscure listings for taxi firms, advertising agencies and mobile phone companies. Davis argues, quietly but convincingly, that new meaning can only arise when sound and vision are impaired and lines of communication appear to be closed.