Mount Fear - Abigail Reynolds

Abigail Reynolds explores the documentation and presentation of information by restructuring them to life-sized, tangible models. One of these is Mount Fear, the artist’s interpretation of police statistics. The series of works is based on the violent crimes committed in urban areas such as Manchester and East London within the time span of one year. The statistics are digitally plotted by a computer programme to form undulating three-dimensional terrains. Reynolds constructs a model of this terrain using Styrofoam and corrugated cardboard, creating a conceptual landscape where each criminal incident adds to the scale of the model: peaks represent high crime levels and valleys are areas of low crime.

The experience of urban life is expressed in the treacherous summits and safe troughs of Reynolds’ sculptural forms. Crime is a grim reality on the city streets, yet Reynolds records it paradoxically by alluding to the language of Romantic landscape painting and the dream of rural escapism. Just as the Romantic poets and painters expressed their sense of awe at the majesty of nature, Reynolds shows a similar sense of wonder at the world of information systems and data. The assumed authority of these data is expressed in the impressive scale of the models. Mount Fear uses statistics to express an unexpected narrative about the urban landscape. In her attempts to pin down dynamic, shifting aspects of social behaviour, Reynolds allows the audience to wonder at the truth of this urban narrative. Statistics are numbers representing facts, and yet they allow ample room for an interpretation of these facts. Reynolds questions the authority of numbers and the ways in which they are exploited, which lends her work a subtle political undertone. For the exhibition at MU Abigail Reynolds will transform the crime rates of several areas in Eindhoven to a new work. This work will be presented at MU together with the London and Manchester sculptures and many drawings.

Abigail Reynolds (1970) is a graduate of the famous Goldsmiths College, where she completed an MA in Fine Art, and Oxford University where she studied English Literature. She lives and works in London and lectures at Chelsea College of Art and Design. Reynolds is principally working with digital media. Her interest in the recording and configuration of information is continued in her current role as artist-in-residence at the reputed Oxford English Dictionary where she is tracking the impact of Britain’s colonial past on the English language. Abigail Reynolds exhibited before in London, Zurich, Helsinki, Vienna and Toronto.

Some more from the web about her:
http://www.abigailreynolds.com/news/newsindex.html