Three years ago artistic collaborators Emily Russell and Kristian de la Riva created a sensation with their installation ‘Do we have to play this game?’ Since then, the pair have been busily developing new still and moving image work, including a piece commissioned by BCA Gallery; ‘I do not understand my own actions’. This work and a series of other new pieces will feature in their forthcoming exhibition ‘I think there’s a problem here’, showing at BCA Gallery from Saturday 14th April 2007.
In the art of Russell and De La Riva, the viewer feels the joy and pain that pervades all relationships. It is an art in which all elements of their subject are exposed, as well as hinting at the passion, the torment is also laid bare for all to see. The newly commissioned piece ‘I do not understand my own actions’ focuses on the patterns of behaviour that become habitual in relationships. The piece embodies the conflicting emotions that exist within a relationship referencing lust and tenderness, anger and frustration. The repetitive nature of the piece imitates the cycles in which we as couples experience these emotions. The presence of jumbled text beside the line drawn moving image and the intermittent use of sound contribute to the sense of confusion and torment being conveyed by the subjects.
As artistic and domestic partners Russell and De La Riva are able to draw on elements of their own relationship in the development of their art. However, the work is not a narrative of their shared relationship. Their work recounts the universal experience of being in a relationship with another human being. They are intrigued by the reciprocal ambivalence that is commonplace between couples and their work constantly responds to the fundamental question; how do people exist in relationships?
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