15 / South London Gallery & Leonor Antunes

24/02/23

Yesterday we went to the Bloomberg New Contemporaries exhibition at South London Gallery. The piece I was most drawn towards was ‘Sights of lavender’ by Gabriel Kidd, I liked the variety/assortment of materials, sketches, mixed media etc.

It was reaffirming to me as sometimes I question whether using so much mixed media in my own practice is as effective as I think it is.. But I was totally immersed in Kidd’s piece, studying each fragment that led me to notice more and more.

Recently I’ve also been inspired by the work of Leonor Antunes. Similarly to Kidd, she uses found materials and arranges them carefully in a way that plays with the space.

What I’m really interested in is this dialogue the materials have with each other and it’s why I focus mainly on ceramics and painting. As stated by Atunes, (when commenting on her commission ‘the frisson of togetherness’ at Whitechapel Gallery) “the idea of layering… You never see one piece isolated, but you always see this piece in relation with other sculptures.”

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Taking inspiration from both artists, I decided to make a hanging tapestry with hessian and found material/foliage.

I think it’s a real improvement compared to when I initially experimented with suspending the string/cotton scrim/iridescent fabric a few months ago. It has a lot more of a body due to the mix of layers and textures.