Holland & MacDonald 'Nature versus Nurture' (detail) 2007
Dirt, in the biological sense of the word, may be the substance from which natural life springs, but not in John Holland and Fiona MacDonald's synthetic vision of horticultural hell. Their 'abused' painted and constructed landscapes fuse the theatre set, the still life and the Victorian garden in a mutant historical pastiche of the pastoral experience, as described in art, literature and lifestyle editorial. Crudely preserved creatures and pimped-down superheroes proliferate these darkly comic habitats: environmental concerns and visitor expectations featuring as twisted subplots in their static DIY soap opera.
MacDonald flirts with traditional notions of beauty and presentation. The sculptural object, centrepiece and painting become formal frameworks for exploiting perceptions of the natural and artificial. In the painting 'Rootballworld', a cluster of tree roots and other indistinguishable natural and inorganic matter could be an outlandish wedding bouquet or cake creation until you see the adulterated water-feature-cum-sculpture, 'Jezebel's Island', that likely inspired it. It's as if the subdued hues of the forest floor and a lurid palette of party pinks have met to form a polite pastel scrum. In contrast, the nearby 'Revolver' brings the darker side of the paintings to life. A hanging, sticky, seemingly tar-coated mass of sticks and tubing - it could be a diseased heart recently ripped from nature's congested chest.
Fiona MacDonald, 'Habitat', 2006
Fiona MacDonald, 'Rootballworld', 2007
oil and acrylic on linen, 165x120cm
While they share an obvious love of the found object and a need to transform the everyday clutter they collect, MacDonald's works appear positively palatable in situ with Holland's contaminated work 'Please Come Back'. He has made-over the back half of the gallery with a trashy, yet carefully considered installation of found, borrowed and customised components. A contaminated well-type construction forms the central feature of a Styrofoam garden centre landscape, it's murky surface punctured by the gnarly back of a waterlogged toad. Stuffed birds and mink, "the nasty little foreign shits", peck and sniff fruitlessly at a wealth of man-made surfaces, spattered with their beautifully hand-painted shit. Toilet fresheners have been broken up and presented on flimsy plinths, as if semi-precious stones or a half-hearted take on the Kryptonite models from Superman. A careless foot might easily crush clusters of toadstools sprouting from the floor.
John Holland, 'Untitled', 2006
In an accompanying text on the wall, Holland reveals the concerns at the heart of this work through the format of an anti-visitor guide: "I have put some flowers in, because everybody likes flowers, they are just their own, simple, pretty, material fact, and they are cheap and easy to make. No epistemological confusion - better to get your aesthetics from gardening than from art." His anxious, diaristic style, though funny and a bit defensive, makes palpable the sense of vulnerability makers face, something rarely garnered from artists' statements or press releases. After reading this, the collaborative work 'Nature versus Nurture' feels rather sewn up. This conceptually tidy piece - a football table featuring lines of squewered stuffed creatures and reconstructed plastic characters - does outline exactly where this able duo meet on matters of art and science, but leaves you wanting to return to Holland's toxic but sublime animal park.
Rebecca Geldard
Dirty Nature
Until 19 May
Standpoint Gallery
45 Coronet Street
Hoxton
London N1 6HD
T: +44 (0)207 739 4921
Rebecca Geldard is a freelance writer and critic living in London.
