Magic of water

(Morning Star, Tuesday 24 January 2006)

EXHIBITION: Elizabeth Ogilvie - Bodies of Water, Dundee Contemporary Arts

Having worked with water for over 10 years, Fife resident Elizabeth Ogilvie's show is a real coup for the DCA, an outstanding installation which exhibits strength and vulnerability in equal measure.

Gallery 2 is a gateway to the main event, showing Ogilvie's collaborative piece with renowned Taiko drummer Joji Hirota.

The piece features three screens, one showing off Hirota's rhythmic understanding of water and its movement and one displaying Ogilvie's reaction to the music as she excites the water with a rod.

The third and main screen displays the water itself changing from inanimate blank canvas to an intense, vibrant illustration of the collaboration.
The main attraction in Gallery 1 offers two large pools surrounded by a platform.

In the dim light, the first pool is mesmerising in its absolute stillness.

Acting as a reflective surface, the piece becomes more about that which can be seen in it, than what it is itself.

Over the pool, film is projected of the three main processes of the water cycle, a representation of the indefinable magic of water.

The second pool in the room is agitated, water being actively manipulated by way of pipes in the ceiling.

From them, precipitation falls in cycles, starting out as steady drizzle and eventually cascading down in a deluge.

Ogilvie's ongoing fascination with water seems never better placed than when in such close proximity to one of Scotland's grandest rivers, and Bodies of Water shows the lengths to which this natural resource can represent the fluidity of music and of human perception.

The artist's recent pledge to "promote a greater respect and understanding for water" is both brave and daunting, but through installations such as this, Ogilvie goes some way to persuading all that global bodies of water are ever-changing and our rapt attention is warranted.