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Catherine Bertola
Bridge Farm, Bicker

Beauty amidst dereliction

"In Bertola's previous works, the debris o fhumanity - decay in the form   of dust, of residual traces in derelict spaces - has been used to comment on the sweet and intimate deterioration unto death promised by the human condition."
Dr Catherine Harper

Place, history, and how the past impacts upon the present, are central to Catherine Bertola's artistic practice.

For the Beacon project Bertola once again drew on her fascination with abandoned spaces, and her obsession with dust, the Matter of History, both in its physical materiality and through its associations to age, decay and time passing.

Everyday for two weeks, Bertola ritualistically and meticulously cleaned and polished the floor of the drawing room to carefully create a pattern relating to the date the farmhouse was built. The process of cleaning commenced in silence from dawn to dusk, and during the exhibition the repetitive and rhythmic sound ofthe action was played back into the space, alluding to the traditional and invisible duties of housemaids and domestic servants. Alongside this laborious cleaning ritual, the artist also painstakingly tried to fill in all the cracks that have appeared in the walls, as a futile attempt to restore the surface of the room and revive it to its former splendour.