Candice Jacobs:
EXHALE, Cactus Gallery

Text by Denise Courcoux

Entering the seductive environment of Candice Jacobs’ EXHALE, it is easy to forget the stark industrial surroundings of the building that Cactus Gallery inhabits. A deep pink gel installed on the windows is in place to throw a literal rose-tinted glow across the show; during this evening visit it had the opposite effect, the gallery lights shining an alluring fuchsia beacon into the car park below. EXHALE is the second of a two-part solo project by Nottingham and London based artist Jacobs; the first part, INHALE, was shown last year at Project/Number in London. It is fitting that the exhibitions take their name from a line of products by a cosmetics company that, according to the exhibition’s press release, promise the wearer ‘true femininity, serenity, masculinity and tranquillity’. EXHALE explores the visual language of desire that is exploited so relentlessly and ruthlessly in marketing; a new perfume won’t just make you smell nice, it’s a route to a better life.

A series of posters on the gallery walls repeat a detail of the fronds of a palm leaf, an image taken from an Amsterdam travel agents’ wallpaper. Enlarged and devoid of context, Jacobs has stripped the source material down to the effective visual shorthand familiar from a thousand travel brochures, and implicitly understood: the palm tree’s promise of Paradise. These posters are overlaid with a literal shorthand, specifically a phonetic writing system called Gregg shorthand. A quick and functional form of communication is transformed here into elegant, curved neon lights, which echo EXHALE’s themes of covetousness with a message that translates as ‘Self centred yet seductive, thankyou’.

Small gold sculptures are laid out carefully on a long, mirrored table-top; these are gold-plated, 3D-printed bronze replicas of Fortuna cigarette butts, a popular brand in Spain. A memory of the artist’s own experience of package holidays in the Costa Blanca, the rather mundane reality is alchemised into something of value by Jacobs, in a comment on the aspirational marketing of tobacco (Fortuna translates as fortune) and reflecting the allure of the tourism industry presented in the posters opposite. The hues and materials used in the exhibition – mirrored tables, pink window film, gold cigarette butts, even the gaffa tape holding the posters up is gold – combine to create a high luxe aesthetic reminiscent of a kind of ostentatious wealth that seems ever-more alien in this age of austerity.

 A solitary paper Starbucks cup is a concession to the reality of consumerism, and prompted hushed whispers from fellow visitors about whether it was part of the exhibition or not. Bought by Jacobs during her time in Liverpool, she worked out that, based on average working hours, it would be the 1,040,000^th latte made by the barista who served her. Unlike the gold cigarette stubs, the cup is flimsy and disposable, and the power of the brand begins to dissolve. Alongside this, aspiration reveals itself in respiration with the steady, heavy breathing of www.inhale-exhale.uk, presented here on a laptop. The intimacy of the audio is at odds with the anonymity that technology offers. Jacobs as an artist is fascinated by our complex relationship with the internet, perceiving a link between commercial marketing techniques and the ways in which people manipulate their own image online – presenting ‘a manicured version’ of themselves, as writer Orit Gat observes in a conversation with Jacobs published to accompany the exhibition. EXHALE subtly raises weighty questions about how we are manipulated and how we seek to manipulate in turn, and leaves one questioning exactly why we desire the things we do.

Denise Courcoux is a writer based in Liverpool.

Candice Jacobs: EXHALE, Cactus Gallery, Liverpool

30 January – 22 February 2015

Published 21.02.2015 by Georgina Wright in Reviews

625 words