Private View Review – Erica Eyres and Mark Moore Presents @ Rokeby – London

In April last year Rokeby opened up on Store Street in London’s WC1. Since then the gallery has gathered together a tight stable of cool, clean-cut artists including Royal College graduates Michael Samuels and Claire Pestaille. Twelve months on and Rokeby has hooked up with LA’s Mark Moore Gallery. It's a collaboration that's both savvy and significant. After all, the well-established Mark Moore is has a heavy set of artists in tow, including Alistair Mackie, Simon Willems, Allison Schulnik and Chris Tallon. These are all seriously hot talents. Willems alone has been tipped as one of the Top 100 Emerging Artists while his associates are easily as impressive.

Last night’s private view presented a double whammy opening at Rokeby with Mark Moore’s lot shacking up downstairs and newcomer Erica Eyres filing the area upstairs. It all sounds a bit of mash-up, these various talents packed into one small space, however the show was quite the opposite; well thought-out, provoking and slick. Eyres, a Canadian born, Glasgow-based artist with a sharp, dry wit, offered up two video installations and a whole hoard of small, neatly framed, black and white ballpoint pieces representing some fairly cartoonish females. Yet, it’s on film that Eyres really shines. The duo of works shown included the darkly hilarious ‘Destiny Green’ (above), a funky little snippet influenced by such cautionary true-life tales as Jocelyn ‘Cat Woman’ Brown and Jonbenet Ramsey. While the usual wine-soaked din of a private view meant the sound was hard to hear, the work’s message was as clear as it’s storyline; child beauty queen Destiny Green disappears and returns having had her face surgically removed. Fabulous. Weirdly the finally shots of a faceless Destiny gormlessly brushing her hair (well, she rather lacks expression by this stage, what with having no face and all) seems strangely reminiscent of so many overly botoxed girlies today. Funny that…

Back to Mark Moore’s crew and these guys are something else. Alistair Mackie’s ‘Egg Head’ (above), a hollow doll-style head made from eggshells, is about a precise and perfect as can be; Allison Schlulnik’s canvases, thick with paint are seemingly simple but far more complex on closer inspection, and Ryan Taber super-precise drawings gothic and mesmerising. And it’s all good. In fact, it’s damn near perfect.

Erica Eyres and Mark Moore Presents are showing at Rokeby, 37 Store Street, WC1 from 16th May - 20th June 2006.