Sarah Oppenheimer is an architectural manipulator. She creates apertures and extensions in buildings or walls, modifying familiar spaces with dramatic and disorientating interventions.
MF -142 - her latest project - is a major installation on the third floor of Annely Juda Fine Art. In contrast to the conventional right-angle plane of the gallery's walls and ceilings, Oppenheimer has bisected the gallery with a massive diagonal plane - floor to ceiling. Doubling the floor beneath, the plane twists on two axes. This rotated plane becomes wall, ceiling or floor depending on the location of the viewer within the space. Whilst forming an imposing new level to the gallery the installation also has a curious and impressive levity.
Apertures interrupt the plane disclosing two views of the building's exterior not usually visible from within the gallery. This hole is a trademark of Oppenheimer's work - providing a 'filmic' or 'cinematic' view of a space physically removed from the viewer. It becomes a visual frame allowing viewers to be spectators or characters.
Oppenheimer's installations are made with meticulous precision and quality of finish - this contributes to the sense of permanence about her works - they never appear as transient installations but moreover as perma- nent challenges to our perception of our environment and ourselves within it.
Annely Juda Fine Art showed Sarah Oppenheimer installations at the Frieze Art Fair (2007) and Art Unlimited, Basel 2009. This is her first one-person exhibition in the UK.
