On the back streets of Whitechapel, one enters into the confusing boundary of the Elastic Residence. Blurring the setting in which one views art between the domestic and the public gallery, we are then confronted with another dilemma, that of Mans relationship between the indoors and outdoors.

Simeon Nelson‘s Installation, “Terroir/Boudoir” explores the relationship humanity has established with his setting, that of the security of the indoors and the fear of the wilderness, or alternatively the confines of the indoors in relation to the out doors paradise.

Entering the installation one is faced with a Gothic array of laser cut plywood columns leading to the far end of the room, in which the systematic arrangement of the columns merge with a mangled array of birch saplings, thus moving from one ‘forest’ to another. Amongst both these settings, caught on the rugged edges of the columns and branches are shreds of lace, seemingly either from a curtain or dress.

The installation seems to merge two other elements, that of fear and security, each questioning one another against each other. Has our retreat into the indoors secluded us into the terrifying world of the self and its internal wilderness, at the expense of nature? Or does nature also offer a threat, in which the indoor asylum is our last resort.

We are also “brought in” to question our very relationship with nature, and its estrangement. We have ostracized ourselves from it in fear, and must subdue it. Yet, on the other hand, we are left in the confines of the indoors.

Here, in the indoors, we are faced with the same “rugged harshness” as the out doors, yet this time, organised and subdued in a series of manmade intricate gothic patterns, in place of the sere branches; each still able to tear the very fabric that veils humanity from nature and the outside, be it curtain or dress.

At what worth has Man made this social contract?

Simeon Nelson “Terroir/Boudoir”
Date: April 21st – May 8th, 2005
Place: Elastic Residence
Address: 22 Parfett Street, GB-E1 1JR London
Tel: +44 (0)20 7247 1375
http://simeon-nelson.com