Baseball is a meditative pursuit for some and an infuriatingly slow-paced experience for others. Like most sports, it is dictated by time-honoured traditions, rules and regulations, and various other circadian rhythms of the playing field and clubhouse. It also has its own ecosystem of movements (swings, throws, catches, runs), codes (fastball, ace, dinger, punch out), and objects (ball, bat, mitt, base, mound, helmet). The prototypical fanatic knows this universe well, becoming a fervent reader of the game\u2019s undercurrents.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Michelle Furlong\u2019s solo exhibition Inter\u201cplay\u201d<\/em> at Centre Clark explores the liminal and spiritual qualities of sports. The first object encountered, the negative mold of a golden visage, is isolated from the others in the main gallery by a white wall. Delicate and small, pressing into the wall, the piece resembles the inverted form of a statuette typically found on a trophy. The presentation of a present\/absent figure connotes a deconstructive approach to celebratory pageantry. This more quiet, introspective look at athletic achievement is supported by Alisha Piercy\u2019s introductory essay, which describes Inter\u201cplay\u201d<\/em> as \u201cstepping over a boundary into another space, a non-space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walking beyond the dividing wall into the second gallery, the viewer is ushered into a captivating interstitial sporting landscape. Furlong\u2019s installation is composed of sculptures and paintings that draw on the visible and invisible forces of sports iconography and patterns of play. A large painting at the centre of the gallery depicts overlapping black numbers partially framed by a thin-lined pink rectangle, mimicking the back of a sports jersey. From a distance, the shapes generated by the critical mass of digits creates chance assemblages, but from close up, each individual number can be read independently. Another painting layers white and pink lines on a jet-black background, resembling set plays from a coach\u2019s playbook. Making an abstraction out of the rigid, ingrained painted lines of a court by reassembling and decontextualizing them, Furlong steps into the intangibles of magical sporting moments. An additional green painting of a white and ethereal wind-caught net, dangling over the sections of a pitch, compliments the free-flowing unknowns of the installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n