A FLEET journey between outer and inner space seems to be at the heart of Helen Comerford's current show of sculpture and charcoal drawings. The artist has carved a series of small boxes from various types of timber and filled them with precious organisations of wax, pigment, metal and even plant life, to deliver a glimpse of cosmic complexity submerged below the surfaces of the natural world.
Comerford's boxes take their titles from celestial forms - the sun, moon and planets of our solar system - though not all are spherical. All follow, however, a similar pattern, in that they are carved smoothly from wood, letting the swirls of the exposed grain ape the planets' languorous orbital patterns.
The boxes are then sliced in two, their interiors filled, and the two halves secured together again by a leather thong.
The result is a series of discrete, minimal objects, which unfasten to reveal an enigmatic complexity. Hidden away inside Jupiter, for example, is the aftermath of a fiery cosmic collision. Mercury Box splits to reveal a snarl of clean and shiny wire, while elsewhere boxes contain intricate blackened origami like paper works, minute, stuttering gold leaf, pigment abstractions and - in the box which represents the sun - the vulnerable skeleton of a dried leaf.
