Nothing Ever Happens

"Nothing much ever happened at West Coker" in Somerset, according to the village annals. "No relic of saint nor monument of art nor scene of natural beauty ever attracted visitors to it."  So it's hardly the sort of place you'd expect to find a contemporary art gallery.  But the Old School Room, run by Simon Lee Dicker and Chantelle Henocq looks set to challenge that. 

Curated by Nia Metcalfe, their latest show Nothing Ever Happens looks at our attraction to and dislocation from the natural world. This tension is typified by Michael Day's contemplative video pieces, in which picturesque landscapes are interrupted or overlaid with the technological and the mundane.

Dafydd Fortt has constructed a compelling two-dimensional work at one end of the space. Mind the Shake Holes, Tyle Haidd to Cwar Yr Ystrad is derived from photographs taken during several walks between two quarries in the artist's Welsh homeland. Cut-out images - divorced from context - are systematically repeated to create a kind of psychedelic wallpaper.

The dream-like atmosphere is completed by Ellie Doney's sculptural forms which seem poised between  liquid and solid, beautiful and grotesque. Consisting of poured glass matched with clouds of foam filler, they seem at home in their own materiality and yet convey an uncanny sense of instability.

Nothing Ever Happens, featuring the work of Michael Day, Dafydd Fortt and Ellie Doney, runs Thursdays to Sundays, 15 June 2012 - 8 July 2012 at OSR Projects, Old School Room, Church Street, West Coker, Somerset BA22 9BD