by Kevin Freitas





Chris Marshall lives and makes his artwork in the UK. I met Chris in 2000, in Brussels, when he came there as part of a cultural artist exchange between UK and Belgian artists. A reciprocal exhibit entitled Terre à Terre, organized by A.P.T. (Art in Perpetuity Trust) Gallery, an artist collective located in Deptford, S.E. London; Maison de l'Art Actuel des Chartreux, Brussels, a contemporary art gallery with resident studio space (similar to our LUX Institute); and my space, Abel Joseph Gallery, also located in Brussels. Chris was a member and practicing artist with A.P.T. and with a smaller group of South East London artists, under the name of A2 - christened in spirit by the A2 freeway that runs through the South East.

Chris and a second UK artist, Liz Harrison, both did installation works in my gallery, while the remaining artists, Mickey Dell, Paul Malone, and Nicola Rae, exhibited their works at the Maison de l'Art Actuel. The site-specific work Chris placed in the gallery, Red Wine, was made up of 500 8 mm x 1500 mm glass tubes, 30 litres of red Gallo wine, rubber stoppers, filled to the brim, and the patience to line them all up, side by side, against the gallery wall and storefront window. The gallery, a former cafe bar, fit perfectly with Chris' work in both concept and idea. Here is what he has to say about the piece:

Red wine has an enormous history, it is the embodiment of time. It has an inherent depth of process; of making; of maturing. It is metaphysical and scientific. There is immense poetry in the concept of wine, its associations, its symbolism. It has a magical presence in its colour and transmission of light.

The transmission of color and light these pieces gave off, including the fragrant bouquet of decanting wine, was mesmerizing and ephemeral, to say the least. The smoothness of the glass tubes against the rough bricked gallery walls, the variations in tone and gradations of the "redness" of the wine as the eye travelled downward, and the Rothko-esque soft neon glow emanating, made for one of the most poetic and minimalist installations I've seen to date.





To see more of Chris Marshall's work and the A2 artists, please visit them here and here.