As stated in the gallery blurb, the workin this exhibition was separated into different topics such as gender and sexuality, politics, warfare etc. To me this was to be expected as these themes have been picked apart in art for years. With this in mind, I was somewhat put off by what i thought I was about to see, and indeed much of the work did not surprise me in the slightest. For example, some of the papers dealing with the theme of warfare I found very similar and uninventive. the idea of disguising the images of war within traditional wallpaper pattern strongly portrays how, as a society, we are anaesthetized to war due to the constant media bombardment of images. As far as bringing war into the home, the artists have succeeded without a doubt, but for me this is nothing new. The topic has been tackled in this way too many times for these prints to create much interest. Personally I think work of this content is beginning to add to the bombardment.
One of the first wallpapers i looked at under the imprisonment theme was Lisa Hecht's "Chain link fence" 2000. The design is so subtle that I wondered at first how it conveyed the theme at all as, at a glance the design is simple blue wallpaper with thin diagonal lines crossing over the surface. After looking more closely however, and reading the title of the work, the impact is incredible. The fine, chain link print becomes a barrier against the freedom of the clear sky in the background. Imagining this wallpaper covering the walls of an entire room, it becomes imposing and claustrophobic. It could be a prison cell, cage or the subversive image of the home as a place of entrapment.
Overall I enjoyed the exhibition. I found inspiration and ideas as well as formulated an opinion on other artists working in a similar medium to myself. "Walls are Talking" reassured me that there is a lot of scope for my own ideas and that decoration is not as dismissed or overlooked as i once thought.
