From our ancient past to the modern day, people have always been drawn to leaving their mark on a landscape. We have laid down stones in memory, scratched names and scribbles into surfaces and collected memories of places we have been.
Working across ceramics, textiles and metal, all eight makers featured in Traces: Imagined Histories in Clay, Silver and Thread use materials as an intermediary for human relationships to place and memory. Traversing London’s real and mythical histories, Vicki Ambery-Smith’s jewellery miniaturises icons of the city’s skyline, putting a whimsical spin on the familiar in gold and silver, while Ali Holloway’s days spent walking in London have inspired sculptural textile works which use natural plant dyes to explore how ancient Britons’ myths are intertwined in our modern shared histories.
These trails and paths left across landscapes by journeys and human interventions are echoed in the spontaneous embellishments which snake around Ania Perkowska’s pebble burnished vessels, and in Gilles Le Corre’s stoneware plates, whose sgraffito surfaces conjure up both graphic modernist etchings and ancient stone carvings. In her tabletop sculptures, Gill Forsbrook draws upon the the forms of the built environment, hinting at the electric tension created in the relationshop between elements, from standing stones to skyscrapers.
Our ancient connection to materials is epitomised in the archetypal form of the ceramic vessel, transformed by Nancy Main into a series which explores porcelain as a container for human hopes and rituals, while the soft glow of Sasha Wardell’s porcelain lamps illuminates the gallery.
Weaving a winding path through materials and techniques, Traces: Imagined Histories in Clay, Silver and Thread presents exciting new bodies of work from both established and emerging makers. The exhibition is presented alongside a series of events, including workshops in weaving with plant-dyed yarns and making floral sculptures from paper clay, and a talk by jeweller Vicki Ambery-Smith on how London’s skyline inspires her fine jewellery.
Featuring:
Vicki Ambery-Smith | Gill Forsbrook | Ali Holloway | Gilles Le Corre | Nancy Main | Ania Perkowska | Hanna Salomonsson | Sasha Wardell
