Icarus at the Forest Gallery, Edinburgh

(originally published by The Student) 

     Walk into Grazyna Dobrzelecka's exhibition in the Forest gallery and you may well think this is just an empty room with the last show's remnants still nailed to the walls. Ten tiny pieces of art trail the bare white walls to the windowsill, where a visitor might end up feeling a little too conspicuous in the wide street-side window.

     Named for the mythical Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun, the exhibition continues Dobrzelecka's interest in birds and flight. His previous showing, Pigeonholes at the ECA, was inspired by the effects humans have on the life of the humble city pigeon. Here his reference to birds specifically is restricted to a single tiny black and white photograph, but themes of freedom and captivity run through each piece, from the 2lb lead weight on one wall to the one-sided chess game on the windowsill, entitled Entrapment.

     Elsewhere, Wing consists of a right-angled triangle of lines, slashed into one blank wall and reminiscent of a prisoner counting out the days of his sentence. This, like the other pieces, stands alone and is absent of explanation or mark on the wall beside it, making the room look like a collection of things found on a beach, especially in the case of the phonebook pages bent to form a wing or a wave.

     But it seems the simplest of the works is the most captivating. The image of the birds, Flight, shows a few birds on a city windowsill, one of which is blurred in tentative flight. It is the bird's shadow which catches the eye- this dense black form plastered onto the side of the building is far more distinct than the animal itself.

     Given a bit of deciphering, this collection of work is interesting in its treatment of the subject. Feathers are incorporated into most pieces, and a stark monochrome makes this little room almost startling in its difference to the cosy dark of the café next door. Dobrzelecka's art makes a modest attempt to reach olympian heights, though it remains to be seen whether he will soar.