For Frieze London Emma Hart presents a series of new works – a plethora of ceramic satellite dishes mounted to the wall, echoing the arrangement of dishes sometimes found on the exterior of a block of flats. Each dish is individually decorated with patterns, images and symbols that start with the use of the dish to receive broadcast information and the inevitable corruption of the transmission by interference, noise and feedback. A satellite dish beams the technicolour public world into the monochrome private domestic one. The slippages between foreground and background in Hart’s dish patterns test out what is public and private, exterior and interior – producing vital signs or just too much damn noise?
Developing from ‘Mamma Mia!’, her recent exhibition at The Whitechapel Gallery, Hart continues to investigate pattern: visual patterns, patterns of psychological behaviour and how to manipulate then rupture these. Hart uses ceramics to create situations between the work and the viewer, often in the form of claustrophobic installations that engage the viewer physically and mentally. There are frequent verbal and visual spillages, and Hart’s use of clay is often corporeal, forming the material into approximate body parts that act as substitutes for human action and employment.
