The Losses

This solo exhibition is the culmination of Heather Ross’s practice- based PhD research into the work of artist Kurt Schwitters, specifically focussing on his Merz Barn Wall. The objects and materials presented, respond to the Hatton Gallery’s archive, concentrating on the movement of the Wall from its original site in the Lake District (in 1965), to its restoration and re-contextualisation in the Hatton Gallery. Kurt Schwitters’ one-man art movement ‘Merz’ sought to re-think discarded and or fragmentary everyday materials by re-using and re-purposing them for the creation of new artwork. The Losses refers to a term used in conservator’s reports, to describe the ephemera (or fragments) which have been detached or become displaced from the original artwork. In this exhibition, Ross employs Schwitters’ ‘Merz’ philosophy to consider how ‘the losses’ might be repurposed, reconstructed or reformed to offer new readings of his Merz Barn Wall. In addition, how the language of conservation, restoration and archival study - as constantly evolving activities - form part of the viewer’s experience of engaging with the Wall as a fragment itself, which continues to be re-imagined.