Patrick Hall is probably best known for creating artworks which are rare examples of the successful symbiosis of function and content. His familiar chests of drawers in particular exist in a cunning duality, the doubling of false-fronted drawers creating a facade suggesting that what you see is what you get. The surprise contained behind the surface is a perfectly functioning space, meticulously crafted. When furniture aspires to art it usually fails, not functioning satisfactorily in either role. He has consistently belied that outcome, in fact in his work the whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts, being both beautiful, functional furniture and engaging artwork of depth and resonance. Each function could stand alone but since the notion of collection and storage has underpinned the artwork, that symbiosis has always made perfect sense, elegantly balanced and articulated.

This new body of work is something of a departure from that form. The work exists without any 'functional' aspect. Certain familiar qualities remain, - a meticulous attention to detail, a thorough, patient and sensitive engagement with the properties of his materials and the desire to evoke historical and narrative connections. It still hinges on the notion of collecting, for Hall is an inveterate collector. These works also suggest display cabinets, lit from within, imbuing the contents with a sense of precious rarity, elevating the elements and focusing attention on their specific sculptural forms as well as their new relationships to each other.

All objects contain stories but they also evoke them. Pat Hall's engagement with objects is centered on suggesting meanings and (new) lives for the things he collects. In the case of this latest work the departure point is bones, sourced from road kills, but the stories they suggest are complex and poetic and refer to the human realm. Once the bones, the armature of the living creature, are released from that purpose in death they may be isolated, taking on 'forensic' functions as well as exposing their purely sculptural qualities.

In each piece the often tiny, delicate bones are arranged in complex patterns, taking the eye on a journey, in some cases, such as Historical Record Number 1, referring to historical journeys. Ships made from tiny bones, set against a stark black background field, trace their trajectories outward in a circular composition reminiscent of the stars spinning above the early navigators, creatures from the corners of old maps evoke the perils of the unknown. Like all Hall's works the layers of reference are complex, growth rings (a record of time passing), and scrimshaw being some appropriate allusions in this context, while the governing compostional format of the LP record asserts itself.

The stark white, (or black), bones form patterns which draw the eye constantly around within the compositions. In Black Bones Number 1 , and The Space between Stars Number 1, the bones are tied with cotton to series of 'tags' containing statements, which read across the surface – a metaphor for life journeys but, like much of his work, expressed as a poem, not proscriptive, allowing an open end for the viewer to enter into the potential meanings of the text. The journeys are mapped in bones, a road, a track built of bones, winding circuitously as tracks of discovery must. Is this then, a journey of and to the 'self'?

The overall content of the series is consistent with Hall's use of the Record (as deconstructed actual vinyl LP records), and recording (as in historical record or trace), and balances multiple co-existent meanings, Historical Record Number 2 – Numbers without Record), refers to the songs which were number one on Billboard at the time of specific military events, which are identified on the label. Present within the 'growth rings' is the intrusion of tiny body parts lodged in the painstakingly sliced, opened and expanded  LP record itself.

All the works in this series contain complex poetic layerings of meaning, presented in stark formal oppositions of black and white. The sumptuous, elegant, museum-like cases enforce a certain authority but like all collections displayed they are in fact only one possible relationship and that is determined by the will of the artist not to 'fix' meaning but to open it out, recognising the fact that all suggested meanings must in the end be inconclusive, or contingent at best, and that the artist envisions new connections and creates new worlds in which new relationships and significances become possible.

Seán Kelly ©
2008