Dunhill and O’Brien’s installation at White Conduit Projects features an assembly of ‘rocks’ in the upstairs gallery, reflecting nearby market stalls. In the basement, videos document their measurements of boulders in British landscapes, resembling postcards, alongside clay models of similar forms, merging local and distant influences.
In Western culture, stones often carry negative connotations, seen as dumb and burdensome. Phrases like “between a rock and a hard place” and the legend of Sisyphus emphasize this view. Conversely, in Japan and other Asian cultures, rocks are revered, serving as focal points for contemplation. Artists Dunhill and O’Brien are fascinated by Suiseki, the ‘Art of Stone Appreciation,’ and Fujizuka, miniatures of Mt. Fuji made during the Edo period, highlighting the human effort to reinterpret nature’s chaos into manageable forms.
Dunhill and O’Brien have been working collaboratively since 1998 and have exhibited in galleries and project spaces in the UK, Ireland, Holland, Italy and Japan. They have participated in residencies including the British School at Rome, Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo and the European Ceramic Work Centre, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Holland. One of the primary tasks in their collaborative practice has been to devise methods for making sculpture unhampered by the burden of their individual taste or the ‘hand of the artist’. This quest has led them to deploy strategies and apparatus involving elements of chance, physical instability, remote control, and occasionally other people.