Jonathan Baldock's exhibition at Arnolfini in Bristol is an eerie, uncomfortable, and strange collection of tapestries and ceramics that reaches out to the viewer with arms spread, hands grasping, and lips puckered. The show, titled Held, presents an invitation to be held, yet its cuddliness may conceal a threat or a violent trap. The English artist crafts a tense world of folkloric psychedelia and pagan aesthetics that defies the gentle, therapy-lite language often used to describe it.
A World of Folkloric Psychedelia and Pagan Aesthetics
Upon entering, visitors might feel they have stumbled upon a messed-up rural ritual, where they could be invited to don one of the wheat masks on the wall or find themselves trussed up as a sacrifice. Two life-size felt figures greet attendees, their robes decorated with leaves and greenery, with pink holes at crotch level hinting at other purposes. Ceramic flowers on the walls have grown noses and ears; a tongue protrudes from the centre of a grey poppy, seemingly trying to lick passersby. Hands reach desperately from ceramic pots on the floor, as if bodies are trapped inside or trying to pull viewers in.
Escaping into a Pungent, Menacing Atmosphere
To escape this magical pagan world where nature has come alive, visitors move to the next room, where a pungent odour of fur, wood, and damp moss hits them. A deep bass rumble echoes in the space, accompanied by sounds of twigs snapping and a creature breathing. The source appears to be a giant bear on a platform in the middle of the room. Visitors are invited to climb up and cuddle with it, to be embraced by its huge arms, but the experience feels neither comfortable nor safe. The central tension of the show revolves around the rub between care and violence, love and rejection.
Personal and Cultural References
Baldock's work is deeply personal, with references to his mother's support for his career and her pleasant English garden, alongside nods to sexuality, bodies, English history, and Japanese culture. Faces grimace from pots, flowers grow out of anuses, and tapestries are covered in geometric patterns, images of bodies and teeth, trees of life, Celtic knots, English roses, ancient inscriptions, and green men. The exhibition is dizzying, surreal, and aggressive.
Unsettling Soundtrack and Atmosphere
The unsettling nature of the exhibition is amplified by a weird ambient soundtrack that makes viewers feel as if they are about to be pounced on by a mythical beast in a deep, dark forest. There is a sense of ancient rites viewed through the lens of 1960s hippy love, churned through millennial malaise. It is as if The Wicker Man were set not on an island off north-west Scotland, but in early 2000s semi-rural Kent—a somehow infinitely more terrifying, uncomfortable, and sinister prospect.
The exhibition runs at Arnolfini, Bristol, from 27 June to 27 September.
