Miss By Roy Voss

MISS is a two-part commission that takes the form of an exhibition in South Square Gallery and sited artworks located around the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

In the gallery a theatrically over-sized backdrop cuts diagonally across the first space, emphasising the domestic scale and feel of the room. The painted image is a kind of landscape, but with the appearance of a ubiquitous brick wall – landscape as wall, wall as backdrop - and has an available back and front. An ornamental bouquet of flowers, elevated
by a simple stand, becomes a standard lamp, with its bare bulb labouring against the back of the canvas like a diminutive sun. Beyond this a sculpture of a doorframe suggests movement from one physical or psychological place to another and signals a shift in scale in
the second space.

In response to the Bronte Country landscape and its recognition as a visitor destination, found postcards are utilised in a series of small collages. Each collage has a word cut from the back of a posted postcard, which has then been reinserted so that it appears within the
picture on the front, becoming an accomplice or a foil to the image.

In contrast to the work exhibited in the gallery, where the landscape is artificially imagined within the confines of the interior, Voss uses the Parsonage as a site for subtle interventions set within the dramatic backdrop of Bronte Country. Inspired by the context of the
parsonage, three steel signs of varying sizes are sited in and around the Parsonage’s grounds, each spelling out the word MISS. Although the work appears direct, the word being simply a title that suggests singleness or youth, the word also suggests a longing for someone or something; there is an idea of missing the three Bronte Misses.

MISS is the latest in a series of annual commissions, developed in partnership with the Bronte Parsonage Museum, which provides the opportunity for artists to engage with the context of the surrounding landscape.