Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Wales, UK
20 November 2021 – 20 March 2022
Since receiving a Production Grant from the Arts Council of Wales in 2019 I have been developing a new body work which has culminated in the exhibition In Reverence at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. I have been so fortunate to have had the support of curator and director Katy Freer and Karen McKinnon at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery on the lead up to presenting the work in exhibition in Gallery 7 at the Glynn Vivian. Its a perfectly proportioned room and suits the work beautifully I think. The exhibition will tour to Aberystwyth Art Centre and Plas Glynn Y Weddw through 2022.
The exhibition In Reverence exists as a study of humanness. Taking the domestic realm as the site of its inquiry, it endeavours to engage with the intangible, unsettling and ten- der aspects of life through material processes and form. Material frailties and capabili- ties become metaphors for our own human experience, the residue of making and the repetitive activity of craft resonant of the ceaseless invisible labours we enact within the home.
Points of transition and the in-between space remain as enduring themes, specifically the imperceptible, uncertain nature of these spaces and their relationship to our human experience. The domestic spaces that we occupy, benign on the surface, operate as la- tent gaps within the narratives of our lives, potent with intimacy and disquiet. The exhibi- tion In Reverence seeks to use this evocative space to capture the ghosts of moments that go unnoticed within ordinary domestic settings, to explore what is hidden and what is revealed, and to question where and to what we attribute value.
Forms have been carved from porcelain by hand, or from plaster on the lathe, before being moulded and cast in a liquid porcelain; the heat of the kiln chamber is used to seek out moments of fluidity. Work has also been made in collaboration with furniture maker Jennifer Finnegan, and Fablab Cardiff making use of their 3D scanning and CNC milling technologies to produce milled walnut tableaux that function as components for furniture pieces.
The exhibition In Reverence seeks out connections between material, form and the genre of still life. In his study of our relationships to the objects we live with, anthropologist Daniel Miller argues ‘Surely if we can learn to listen to these things we have access to an authentic other voice.’ The silence that accompanies a stilled moment offers a space to ‘listen’, as Miller suggests, to the forms presented and to the vibrant presence of material.
The exhibition will tour to the Ceramic Gallery, Aberystwyth Art Centre and Oriel Plas Glynn Y Weddw through 2022.
