A flower soaks in a milky substance; bath crystals froth in sweet-smelling cherry vodka; pubic hair sticks to salt dough; fig juice bleeds onto cotton; fat coats jesmonite; glitter mingles with body butter...

 

The materials in this exhibition are promiscuous. They mix ceaselessly and with sensual energy.

Like the pigment of a painting, or the mashed-up ingredients of a beauty remedy, they have been blended to complement and soothe one another. They drip and spill as they meet, enriched in triumphant elation. Materials also dominate and exhaust one another. They become compromised, unstable and wither.

The treatment of materials in this show recalls Lucy Lippard’s exhibition and short-lived movement Eccentric Abstraction. This movement is described prosaically in the Grove Encyclopedia of Art as an ‘organic abstract form in sculpture, evoking the gendered body through an emphasis on process and materials’1. Lippard, on the other hand, offers us something more evocative, describing the works in Eccentric Abstraction as having a ‘post-dynamic sensuousness, characteristic of provocation, fore - or after - play, rather than of climax’2.

ripe might not be Eccentric Abstraction’s second coming, but both definitions evoke something of what’s at play in this show. The ‘post-dynamic sensuousness’ here is more than just the product of the artist’s choice of materials. It is felt in their deft manipulation of bodily textures and colours, the combination of hard and soft, and the subtle imprints of the artist’s hand found in the works.

Delving into the sparkly leftovers of a sales basket or a ripe-smelling garden waste bin; the artists in this exhibition select and treat materials in a fearless and tender way. They celebrate and grapple with the slipperiness of material culture and its dense and rich scenery; pushing and probing at our relationships with the materials that surround us.

 

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1 Ed. Marter, J., The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art (online: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/
authority.20110803095740301) last viewed: 22.10.17
2 Lippard, L., Eccentric Abstraction, Art International 10:9, (November 1966)

 

 

 

 

Bea Bonafini (b. 1990, Bonn, Germany) is an Italian artist based in London. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2014 and completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2016. Recent solo exhibitions include: Zabludowicz Collection Invites: Bea Bonafini, London, 2017 and A World Of One’s Own,  Fieldworks Gallery, London, 2017. Other selected shows include; Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On The Bedpost Overnight)?, J Hammond Projects, London, 2017; The House of Penelope, Gallery 46, London, 2017; Summer Blue, Lychee One Gallery, London, 2016; At Home Salon: Double Acts, Marcelle Joseph Projects, London, 2016; Full House, Le Cabinet Dentaire Gallery, Paris, 2015; The Behaviour of Being, Cob Gallery, London, 2015; ART15, Art fair: Live performance with Bosse and Baum Gallery, London, 2015 and 15th Cypriot Contemporary Dance Festival (commissioned performance), Cyprus, 2015. Bea has also had residencies at Fieldworks Studios, London, 2017; Villa Lena Art Residency, Italy, 2016 and The Beekeepers Art Residency Portugal in collaboration with curator Mia Pfeifer and Cob Gallery London, 2015.

Gery Georgieva (b. 1986 Varna, Bulgaria) lives and works in London. Gery graduated from the RA Schools in 2016 and previously studied Fine Art/History of Art at Goldsmiths College. Solo shows include Polythene Queen, Hunter/Whitfield, London, 2017; Original Cheese, (AND/OR), London, 2016 and Solo Romantika, Res., London, 2015. Selected group exhibitions include: Balkan Idol (Frieze Film commissioned by Random Acts Channel 4), Frieze Art Fair, London, 2015, screening at MOCA Cleveland, Ohio, US; Outdoor II Continental Love, WARM, São Paulo, 2015; Techno Trance (Paradise Is Now), Luda Gallery, St Petersburg, 2015; Open Source Contemporary Arts Festival, London 2015; Apophenia, Islington Mill, Salford, 2014; AFTER/HOURS/DROP/BOX at Modern Art Oxford and Spike Island, Bristol; and performances at Bold Tendencies and ICA, London, 2012-13. Gery was also awarded the SPACE Patrons and Friends Studio Bursary (2016-2017).

Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau (b. 1985) lives and works in London as an artist and musician. He graduated in 2014 as an Associate Artist at Open School East. Solo exhibitions include: Interruptions, Field Broadcast, London, 2016; Votives, The ARKA Group, Space In Between, London, 2015; Communal Juicing, Space In Between, London, 2014 and REM (Paradoxical Sleep), The ARKA Group, BALTIC39, Newcastle, 2013. Matthew founded The Bad Vibes Club research project in 2014, runs Radio Anti with Ross Jardine and collaborates as The ARKA Group with Ben Jeans Houghton.

Paloma Proudfoot (b. 1992, London) lives and works in London. She graduated in 2017 with an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, having previously studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Camberwell College of Art. Paloma collaborates with artist and choreographer Aniela Piasecka, and is part of the performance group Stasis. Recent exhibitions include: The Thinking Business (duo show with Rebecca Ounstead), The Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2017; Doing It In Public (with Piasecka), Beaconsfield Gallery, London, 2017; There Is One Missing From Your Bunch (solo show), May Projects, London, 2016; Platform 2016 (with Piasecka), Edinburgh Arts Festival, 2016; and Megahammer and The Circus Between Worlds (with Stasis), Glasgow International, 2016. Paloma was awarded The Work Room Residency at Tramway, Glasgow and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop Micro Residency in 2017.
 

Anna Skladmann (b. 1986, Bremen, Germany) graduated in 2017 from the Royal College of Art and previously studied at Parsons School Of Design. Recent solo exhibitions include: A Memory of a Ceremony, The Vinyl Factory, London, 2013; 1991, Zurab Tsereteli’s Art Gallery, Moscow, 2013; 1991 - Generation Putin, Upper Orange Gallery, Berlin, 2012 and Little Adults that toured: State History Museum, Chelyabinsk, 2013; History Museum, Ekaterinburg, 2013 and Museum Of Modern Art, Moscow, 2012. Anna’s work is included in a number of permanent collections, including: The Maramotti Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Stiftung für die Hamburger Kunstsammlung and The Pinault Collection.

Jala Wahid (b.1988) is an artist based in London, currently studying at the Royal Academy of Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include; Akh Milk Bile Threat, Seventeen, London, 2017; Shahmaran, Clearview, London, 2017; Promise Me, Jupiter Woods, Vienna, 2016; and And I’ll Promise You a performance for the Serpentine Park Nights series, 2016. Previous group exhibitions include Le Nouveau Voyeurisme, Hotel Contemporary, Milan, 2017; The Hive Mind, The Koppel Project, London, 2017 and To Figure It Out, Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, 2017. Wahid is also co-founder of SALT. magazine.

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