Redwood is one of those many exhibitions that I stumbled into by accident and had to drag myself out of. Ms. Lowe uses masks, both on faces and hands, to create something far more immediate and - in many ways - more relatable than naturalistic film can deliver. Everything about the film has been carefully crafted to draw the viewer into Lowe's world and evoke a rather strong sense of sentimental memory. As well as reminding me of Švankmajer's work, there is something of a piece of work I saw a couple of years ago in the Palacio de Cristal, in Madrid. In The Marionette Maker by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, the viewer walks around and peers into a trailer of a puppet creator. The artist, an overwhelmingly life-like sculpture asleep on the bed, is surrounded by her living and moving creations. Despite Ms. Lowe's work not actually including any puppets, the painted masks her actors wear, and the jointed hands covering their own, suggest the narrowed expressive text available to marionettes. It is this reduced language of facial expression and movement that allows Redwood to draw broader strokes of human experience. And despite the lack of popular realism in the film, the viewer recognises these strokes as part of their own lives, real or imagined. This is the magic of what Molly Lowe, with the support of Pioneer Works, has created.
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