A more appropriate title for this exhibition would have been ‘The Teeth Behind Kisses’ for each of Dargan’s thirteen works on display here at Tether attract the eye, and continually entice until the power of the work is unleashed to the retina – now barely an inch from the canvas. The teeth are ever-present, but the pleasure of the embrace mutes this imminent danger.
The theme of overwhelming beauty in the mundane is one that has been popular for decades, yet there is no denying that Dargan’s work is as profoundly poetic as Anderson’s Magnolia or the lyrics of Morrissey. These thirteen snatches of everyday life, on display in a converted bedroom one floor above Huntingdon Street, are small in stature, but yet the room seems pleasantly full – Dargan’s representations of the quotidian seem a world away from the gentle hum of traffic passing below.
Dargan uses colour sparingly but effectively, ‘One Man Mexican Wave’, depicting a man keeled over from birthday excesses, filled with sprightly reds and greens stands up well against ‘An Ancient Terror is Visited Upon a Modern Society’, two majestic representations of lightning, filled with autumnal amber and stark whites.
I felt like a voyeur, peeking surreptitiously into the windows of someone else’s existence. Yet, I felt no guilt. Dargan’s representations of the epic and the ordinary – and more often, the epic behind the ordinary – were a pleasure to behold.
Alexander Britton
