See/Saw Degree Show

MTU Crawford College of Art & Design, 2018

“Tabb’s installation has a cartoonish quality; the colours pop in the way of cheap commodities; these have already been aestheticized, their designed surface the hook to snag the shopper. They signal that the aesthetic of vibrancy is already at play in commodity culture. The work also alludes to many 20th century art styles including Arte Povera, Pop Art and Minimalism; and employs techniques from print through to drawing, painting, assemblage and juxtaposition. The one pervasive modern technique it does not use is photography. This further points to the expressivity of objects and materiality in contrast to a medium such as photography built as it is on mediation. This installation could continue indefinitely, but it does not employ extreme accumulation as a technique. It has a relaxed, playful quality, the colour palette pretty. The installation sketches a scene populated by remnants from the everyday and using tropes and techniques developed by 20th Century art practice engagingly works through some of the aesthetic avenues implied today by ‘peak stuff’.”

Written by Catherine Harty member of Cork Artists Collective and a director of The Guesthouse Project for CIRCA Art Magazine