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February 18, 2019 – Review
Lorna Macintyre’s “Pieces of You Are Here”
Tom Jeffreys
Living beings leave traces in the fabric of the world. In “Pieces of You Are Here,” Lorna Macintyre’s solo exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA), some of these traces are material; others can only be imagined.
One starting point is a fragment of terracotta tile dating from the Roman occupation of the region. It was found during excavations at Carpow Roman Fort in Abernethy, a few miles upstream from DCA, and brought to the McManus Art Gallery and Museum in Dundee. Strikingly, the tile bears a double indentation of a dog’s paw. Macintyre’s large-scale black-and-white photograph of the object (Paw, 2018) roots the exhibition in the earth, in archaeology and archiving, and in the material presence of a lost living moment. One can only imagine the dog sauntering across the surface of the clay as it was left to dry, not yet fully hardened to the world. What must the dog have felt as her paw pressed gently into the surface? How might the maker have responded?
Across photography, printmaking, and sculptural installation, “Pieces of You Are Here” consists of many such moments, where a body touches a world: hands and handles, tools, techniques, and forms of making that stem sometimes …