Stone Space is the now the long-standing, I guess we can call it long-standing now, artist-run gallery in the middle of Leytonstone, an intimate glass fronted box of a space pretty much on the high street. Right now David Watkins is embedded in the space with a cleverly named thing called ‘Sensing Precarity’  – an evolving installation piece, the spikes of life you might say, the precarious spikes –  “Infrastructure is often hidden beneath the surface of urban life, only becoming apparent when it stops working. While infrastructures promise modernity and improvement, their neglect and absence exposes inequality and the fragility of progress”.

There’s something rather exciting in the way this piece is evolving, in the lines the piece is taking, the red dips, the blue highs, the fragile strength, or maybe not so strong, we’re all in a precarious state, a fragile future, we’re avoiding it, living for the moment, and here’s an artist addressing these things in a rather powerful way, taking a look at what we all, deep down, don’t want to admit we know. We are all surely on the same thin ice that this evolving expanding David Watkins piece is standing on, the result isn’t really beyond much of a doubt is it?   

– “In ‘Sensing Precarity’ David Watkins explores this tension between aspiration and failure as he constructs a sculpture to fill the gallery. As it builds, reflecting on society’s addiction to the forward motion of progress, the continual development will eventually lead to the work failing under its own weight. Mirroring the absurdity of unsustainable growth. Powerless to escape the cycle of promise and ruin, promise and ruin, the sculpture will rebuild out of the collapse”.

The spikes and peaks of a flow chart, the highs and lows of a graph, the life and times of an artist. As a statement this is a strong piece of art, as a piece of art this is a rather exciting structure, a shape throwing (shadow throwing) structure that really does need the silence of a white cube of a gallery and a little time spent quietly appreciating it.  Will it all still be up by the time the show ends? Will the peaks be off the chart?

“During  various dates throughout the exhibition David will carry on building and adding to the sculpture, looking to extend its reach throughout the gallery space but also increasing the chance of collapse”.

The David Watkins exhibition continues until July 10th. Stone Space is at 6 Church Lane Leytonstone, London E11 1HG. Alas the space is only open at weekends (which is a bit of a shame) Open Saturdays 10:00 – 16:00, Sundays 12:00 – 16:00, although with this being Leytonstone Arts Trail week maybe they’re opening the space during the week? (sw)

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