Collaborative artists Wilkins Hill (Wendy Wilkins and Wes Hill) have been working together since 2000, pursuing a shared interest in the phenomenological aspects of communicating meaning between an artwork and an audience.
In Brainal Pipes Confusion Cave, the artists expand upon a series of works developed in Germany between 2008 and 2012, which stage obtuse metaphors through banners and commercial signage material. Previous works have sought to communicate distinctly but indirectly to viewers; heightening the readability of art as well as its resistance to hermeneutical closure. Brainal Pipes Confusion Cave sees the artists employing commercial banners to invoke the exhibition space as a type of cave, and suggests a mode of analytical engagement that is incomplete or has been abandoned.
A Wilkins Hill installation is often conceived around a central theme that the artists then discard, leaving traces of logic in the work but rarely producing coherence. This exhibition has been specially developed for the Metro Arts space, in keeping with the artists’ emphasis on the temporal and spatial dynamics that are at play in the interpretive process.