Sorcha Dallas

The sculptural works and prints included in German artist Annette Ruenzler’s first solo UK show suggest an uneasy tension between fragility and strength, and a poker-face ambivalence towards traditional notions of beauty and femininity.

In the first space, an image of an upside down pair of female legs in high heels that appear to be emerging from a rug is situated on a wall opposite a small concave mirror that resembles a peephole. In the adjacent space, a convex mirror, with a small cover that you can open and close, is placed on the other side of the wall from the first mirror.

Also in this space are four Flower Talk images of flowers and text, and an untitled sculpture of feminine hands and arms joined in a circle, with one hand in the middle clutching a rope that suspends the work from the ceiling. Intentionally or not, the latter piece echoes Bruce Nauman’s Untitled (Hand Circle), currently on show at Tramway, which I happened to see on the same day. Coincidence or knowing riposte to his masculine hands? Whatever the answer, Ruenzler’s work has a way of pricking your conscience and staying with you long after you’ve seen it.