Fairy Tale exhibition

Yesterday Annette and I went for a look round Leeds Art Gallery down on the Headrow. The exhibition, titled Fairy Tale: Contemporary Art and Enchantment was a culmination of the work of six artists, each through their own media and creativity create their own representations of fairy tales from around the globe. In some cases their work retells famous tales whilst bringing them up to date in new and suprising ways. Others go about represting the tales in more abstract way, allowing the art to be charged with the mood and attmosphere of the story it tells.
In both cases some very interesting and inspiring pieces were created.
My personal favourite was this peice shown bellow.

Although you can't see it that clearly from this photograph, the artist has constructed a tiny paper castle in the far corner. The tiny castle, complete with turrets and towers is a perfect representation of the stereotypical fairy tale castle. The intricacy and attention to detial evident in the enire piece is incredible. The tiny castle appears to be the focal point fo the piece, the pivital point from which everything spreads. Although the initial wow factor is low, once you look closely you start to appreciate the details and delicacy of the piece. Im not sure which fairytale it is supposed to represent, or whether it infact has a deeper meaning, however, the artist really wants us to think about what a fairytale is, what it represnts, to appreciate the way these stories spread, pased on down the generations loosing none of their details and become stronger.

Another piece of interest was Vanessa Jane Phaff's representation of Little Red riding hood (Rotkappchen) The set of 20 red and black line drawings focussed on the more sinister darker side to fairytales. Each of the 20 pictures showed a part of the famous story.