Saturday 8 May – Friday 18 June 2021

Kerry Tribe: Sky (2021)

Kerry Tribe brings Sky (2021), a new iteration of an existing work, to Pavement Gallery in an exhibition opening in May 2021. Viewed from outside through the gallery windows, the expansive photographic work depicts a churning mass of dark clouds rolling across the gallery walls. These cumulonimbi hang over the empty gallery space, filling it with a sense of brooding anticipation. Sky (2021) conjures vague impressions of universal experiences of power, fear and tense expectation. By using simple but evocative imagery, the work encourages a reaction akin to recalling a memory that you can’t quite grasp, or that doesn’t feel quite like your own. Much of Tribe’s work refers to memory. However, instead of dealing in specific autobiographical recollections; collective experiences of nostalgia, contemplation and loss are explored. As a result, Tribe questions the fallibility of recalling past events and the ways in which memories are passed from person to person, evolving over time.

The window of an ex-drapery store in Central Manchester is a location embedded within the city. As a site for the presentation of contemporary art, it offers the viewer an experience perhaps unlooked for, amid their movement through the urban environment. Tribe’s work exploits this position powerfully. Capitalising on Manchester’s reputation for inclement weather, the artist suggests that bad weather is just as present inside as it is outside. The context of this spatial relationship between the internal and external is ambiguous, it might be physical, psychological, social, or political. Nevertheless, no matter how it is read, Sky (2021) envelopes the viewer, rendering turbulent and changing environments visible.