Cinthia Marcelle, Order and Process

Cinthia Marcelle’s use of space, or a certain demarcation of it, is combined in her work with a particular attention to the materiality of things. This dual engagement with space and matter offers an interesting point from which to begin an approach to her creative practice. Both elements come into play – the word ‘play’ employed here intentionally, its theatrical associations a characteristic of the dramatic settings in her work – through what might reasonably be called absurd circumstances. In her films, but also in her installations, we encounter an artist who seems ready to mock any assumed purpose in the human condition, as well as that of the institutions that seek to define or mould it. Hers is a directed derision, one aimed at particular expectations formed by ready-made discourses, whether aesthetic, ideological, or merely those of common sense. Mine is of course a particularly idiosyncratic approach, one not intended to contradict other possible interpretations that her practice clearly and actively invites. My reading of Marcelle’s work opens itself – indeed, it actively invites – discord and contradiction. Not to do so would be to deny its poetic possibilities.