Openings text by Maria Hinel

‘In Rebecca Halliwell-Sutton’s Openings, softly undulating sheets of aluminium peel off the floor, exposing a dark cave-like streak underneath, as a kind of cross-section of a landscape. Reflecting light off the surface, the works emerge as thresholds, seemingly reconciling the conflicting notions of animate and industrial, spontaneous and controlled, resilient and brittle. Right angles and shimmering surface of each sheet unequivocally recall mechanised refinement of a mined material, indirectly referencing the distinct meaning of underground caverns as sources of extraction in capitalist society. Repeatedly striking the surface of each aluminium sheet with hammers of varying dimensions, the artist literally enacts the process of excavation, as if seeking to uncover unresolved mental spaces at the intersection of contemporary and prehistoric. As she notes, “my practice is a ressurfacing of the unconscious; the unknowable can re-emerge and become part of the world.’’ ’

List of Works

Panel (i)
Aluminium, Stuffed refuse sacks,
250 x 140 x 40 cm 
2024 

Panel (ii),
Aluminium, Stuffed refuse sacks,
250 x 140 x 23 cm
2024

Panel (iii)
Aluminium, Stuffed refuse sacks,
250 x 140 x 21 cm
2024

Image, 
Silver Gelatin on Aluminium, 
10.5 x 14.8cm
2021