Shaun Doyle & Mally Mallinson
From top: Sky Blue Cinnamon, 2007. Sky Blue Cinnamon, 2007 (detail).
'Sky Blue Cinnamon' is a folly of a motte-and-bailey castle for a post industrial landscape. The commission was, in part, inspired by the 1754 folly Mow Cop Castle overlooking Stoke-on-Trent, where Shaun Doyle grew up. This shabby curtain of a castle, surrounded by a moat of beer tins and spent condoms, is in essence the embodiment of structure as symbol. The idiosyncratic English building tradition of follies suits Doyle and Mallinson. Follies were built to express the (often conflicting) values and ideals of their architects. as a result the public commonly misunderstood these edifices. Over time these works became vessels for speculative interpretations, and, by default of course, a reflection of contemporary desires and fears.
What it means to be English is an impossible question, and 'Sky Blue Cinnamon' offers no immediate answers. The writer and cultural critic, Michael Bracewell said, "Whenever we try to communicate Englishness, the ones who do it best tend to be those who approach it from a point of ambivalence and ambiguity". as with much of Shaun Doyle and Mally Mallinson's work, 'Sky Blue Cinnamon' is a four lane pile-up of English cultural references and black humour - a head-on collision of the pastorial and the industrial, waiting to be picked apart.
Robert Blackson, Reg Vardy Gallery