Eloise Fornieles at Paradise Row 'From the deep waters of sleep'

White walls, grey floors: Generally I get bored of them.

Loss – things disappeared, things gone away. Simon Faithfull recorded all the things he had lost in a book and then deliberately lost the book [several times] in Whitstable. I didn’t find one. [Gutted]

Eloise Fornieles is definitely a romantic. We wrote down messages to things that we had lost so that Fornieles could send them in Morse code out into a great unknown. Inspired by Ban Jan Ader’s fated attempted journey to Holland from America. Fornieles has placed a stunning traditional wooden lifeboat on a soft sea of salt. The presence of the boat and how the salt changed how you moved around the space made it for something almost magical. Not a conventional grey walls white walls exhibition.

The transformation into another world could have gone further. I wanted drama and to feel an emotional engagement with Fornieles’ performance. Ringing mobile phones killed any atmosphere.

The problem I have with the work is that this female is trapped, passive, in a setting that could be a Pre-Raphaelite one. Her helplessness is illustrated in an extract from the press release. “As the performance continues and the artist wearies her actions will deteriorate, becoming desperate and hopeless.”1 This work doesn’t confront gender stereotypes but perpetuates them. It is all too beautiful and doesn’t have the comedy of Bas Jan Ader. But, I would recommend people to see it for the spectacle of seeing a wonderful wooden boat in a sea of pure white salt.

1.Paradise row press release http://www.paradiserow.com/gallery/index.html 1/09/07