22nd March – 13th May 2012
The Approach Gallery
The Approach presents an exhibition of a new sculptural works by Martin Westwood. Westwood has populated the gallery space with a grouping of sculptures that take as their source material types of superfluous, peripheral objects that are readily found in everyday day life. Plucked from the realms of office industry, commerce and travel, he chooses forms that have evolved to perform highly specified functions. Shown as press casts and exaggerated reproductions of the originals, the surrogates of an inflatable travel pillow, the parcel shelf of a car, boxes of A4 office paper, thick sheets of partition glass used in banks or post offices, a charity collection box and puff pastry. One step removed from the original, the replicas, when elevated to the status of art object, are tinged with a precious, surreal quality. The viewer is not encouraged to believe that these are stand-ins in terms of function. Westwood renders them devoid of any purpose other than sculptural, highlighting their tentative place within a new system of objects. He simultaneously draws attention to the both the original objects’ loss of function and their newly attained value as artwork.