Beauty in the Disregarded

Walking through Earlsdon, Coventry on a sunny summer afternoon over the next three weeks, you may well stumble over this shed, sitting in the courtyard of Earlsdon Primary School. Not, as you might expect, part of the school's summer renovation works. It's an art gallery.

The shed was originally one of three used in Bob and Roberta Smith's exhibition of found objects,at the Mead Gallery in Warwick Arts Centre back in early spring. The sheds were donated to artist collectives to use in their local communities in some way.

Conceived by Martin Green
and Lorsen Camps, the exhibition showcases a range of objects found during their forages, objects that capture a sense of the detritus of your average urban commute, with a dash of beach holiday thrown in. The arrangement here is what makes for the magic: an editorial eye that searches for the numinous in the otherwise mundane.

Primarily the arrangements use a combination of minimalist modulation and colour sequencing to focus the eye. I was particularly taken by the wall of near-white objects, which didn't show too well on my phone-camera in the bright sunlight.

Individual objects appear to blend into the shapes and sequences around them.

I was particularly taken by the array of plastic ice-cream spatulas, possibly beach-gathered or from sunnier times than Coventry's seen lately. Lorsen mentioned that most of the objects were discovered in the past few months, since getting the shed.

I found myself at first ignoring the individual objects - nouns blurring into a sequence of colour, like the parts of an engine. Looking closer, some of the objects become narratives - the straw tied into a knot, or the battered urban footballs, kicked skinless, offering a sprawl of Saturday morning five-a-sides.

Anyway, go see for yourself.

Three Poems by Martin Green

Omega Streets


Clear of wheel spray,
mice, confined to keystone,
as an arched cyclist
splits gaudy reflections
of a theatre on opening night.

Busker,
sheltering under an ornate canopy,
dressed in a suit pierced
with hooks and screws,
sings songs of enmity and furniture
to the short lived bustle
of someone else’s audience.

Fables,
forcibly removed from behind jimmied doors,
splintered jambs,
shards the source of wands,
painted in swarms across pianos and chairs.



Hospital Bus


Inside the full volume of a busy city,
alone in an architectural drawing
of a pristine street corner,
I am sketched in to give a sense of scale.

Drawn taller than I am used to,
consumed by the significance of my own height,
and the company of a slender bus stop,
a wind swims, kissing vigilant skin
while waiting for the hospital bus.

Trapped inside a light dusting of graphite,
extreme loneliness descends like snow
as I trace a trail of worn-grey handholds and chalk routes
that suggest I am not on my own.

Above me an architect's giant hand,
cleared of personal prophecy,
dressed with ornaments freed from emotions,
swiftly erases invaders
momentarily basking on Ashlar brick.

Left with an uncertain stain,
released into the margins,
I pass boulder climbers
waiting for the right moment,
as if to join in a skipping game
about tulip bulbs and nutmeg.



Radio Merz
for Asha Eade-Green


Glue has not been invented
that will stick an artist to a football player.

In an attempt to remember a vital medical term
I have joined two people together
who never met in their life times,
when shorts and cinema queues were a certain length.

A palette of all conceivable materials
set against one colour loyalty,
the inanimate versus the glorious distraction.

A radio mumbles along to itself,
sterilising an empty room.
From behind curtains of inaccurately drawn honesty
a student of birdsong
transcribes the morning call of pairs of crutches,
a collection of ten second chants.



Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) coined the chance-created term Merz to describe his collage technique.