Quiet singing drifts through a narrow corridor. There is a dark room at the end of the hallway filled with the sound of waves and Eleanor King’s voice rising and falling above them. Projected on the far wall is a computer-rendered coastline, slowly moving by in a hypnotic and lulling motion. Time disappears: I can’t tell how long I’ve been here; other people have come and gone. The work repeats itself. 
Eleanor King
Back in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia’s main space, the rest of the exhibition has a very different feel. The walls have been painted in a blue/green Dazzle camouflage pattern and the coast of the Eastern Seaboard. This work is named after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; the names of the paint used include Free Spirit, Come Sail Away, and Home Sweet Home. A group of people are discuss-ing a series of wormhole spirograph-type drawings, and I overhear one viewer tell another that the drawings must have been made with a Blu-Ray disc – an unintentional comment on technological obsolescence. A snake-like sculpture made of audio CDs is on the back wall. In the centre of the gallery is a pair of wooden boats – central to the maritime myth of identity. The boats are worn out, overturned. The Dark Utopian soundtrack continues to bleed out into the gallery, an atmospheric lens for the work: a quiet and cynical reflection on our place here along the coast.
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia: http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/en/AGNS_Halifax/exhibitions/eleanor-king-dark-utopian.aspx
Eleanor King: Dark Utopian continues until June 14.
Daniel Higham works in a butcher shop where he’ll talk to you about art, food, and life. Daniel writes for Visual Arts News and is Akimblog’s Halifax correspondent. He can be followed on Twitter @HighamDaniel.
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Eleanor King at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
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