WYSING ARTS CONTEMPORARY: SLIPPED 4 December- 22 January 2012

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Slipped presents th work of 11 artists who bring a criticality to the history and materiality of ceramics. The approach that the artists in Slipped have taken to working in clay as an extention of their performance, painting or sculptural practices has resulted in work that often takes the materiality of clay as a starting point for pieces that combine the tactile nature of ceramic with conceptual rigour.

Slipped also highlights the potential of Wysing Arts Centre to act as a catalyst for collaborations between artists; much of the work has been created in Wysing's on-site ceramics studio especially for the exhibition.

Works presented demonstrate an interest in folk arts, craft, British modernism and legacies of twentieth century art and design and include domestic, potentially functional objects, painted plaques, small installations and freestanding sculpture.

For Slipped, The Grantchester Pottery, developed by Phil Root and Giles Round at Wysing, presents its first full range of domestic wares in a postmodern palette. drawing on historical precedents such as Roger Fry's Omega Workshops The Grantchester Pottery are interested in collective approaches to production. Similarly, Coco Crampton pursues an interest in the heritage of traditional craft disciplines, creating idiosyncratic collisions of materials and processes that explore the polarised relationship between tradition and the modern, and their relative percieved values. Crampton's Bowers reference systems of growth and natural order; modular stacks of unitary components, branch-like wooden constructions, faux effects surfaces, and spiral growth patterns in hand thrown clay.

Sharing an interest in architectural surface with Crampton, Giles Round offers a Fuming Pot of sage to cleanse the gallery space as part of his Neo Brutalist series of works that take on the texture of broken concrete at Wysing. The Wasters, a number of selected clay off cuts become distinctive architectural forms presented on the classic, functional 606 Universal Shelving System designed by Deiter Rams in 1960. Mark Essen's clay pipe and ashtray present an interest in the fine line between the functional and obsolete. Essen employs wood and marble shaped by use to display his ceramics which are small observational gestures formed in a material he finds complelling because of its long history and malleable but functional properties.

Aaron Angell's works act as an expressive homage to the common imagery of British psychedelic folk music. His expressive approach to sculpting and glazing stoneware results here in four individual intricate, abstract scenes that share common motifs and gestures. Lawrence Leaman's prints, Motor Mouth, 'A' and their air drying clay work Moon with Laces, take the contemporary suburban marginality of a Welsh border town as a starting point. Their graphic sensibility offers a visual counterpoint to the potential nostalgia of exploring ceramics.

Caroline Achaintre's work combines start materials such as patent leather and steel with ceramics to create sculptures that are complexly attractive; a collision of materials that is at once appealing and repellent. Jesse Wine's sculpted stoneware forms, coated in rich layers of coloured boot polish, have a sumptuous erotic feel; their surfaces embody hours of layering, texturing and smoothing. This process of layering is made visible in Swimmin Pool and Always Fashion and matched by an overlaying of Wine's points of reference: contemporary consumer culture; design; pornography and traditional art from from around the world.

Lucy Conochie's standing plaques and assemblages are an investigation into an ambiguous space between devotional painting, the sculptural object, and the still like within the history of painting. Each piece could also act as a linguistic signifier, with Conochie building a relationship between the languages of painting and poetry. These earthenware tablets reference drawings and larger unmade sculptures. Phil Root's Party Pieces take some recurrent pattern motifs from his paintings, and present them as a series of stand along coloured shapes in 3-d.

Works in Slipped are for sale, with prices ranging from £30 to £2400 and can be purchased through Own Art, the interest-free loan scheme. Wysing Members, Supporters, Patrons and Collectors can enjoy a 10% discount. Also on display in Wysing’s reception will be the newly commissioned Eastern Pavilions Print Portfolio; an edition of 144 boxed sets by artists Gareth Bayliss, Adam Bridgland, Coco Crampton, Demian Flores, Ryan Gander, Nigel Henderson, Andy Holden, Frances Kearney Kate Owens, Elizabeth Price, Colin Self and Tris Vonna-Michell.

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THE COSMOS

12 - 27 May 2012

Brought together for a six-week residency under the metaphor The Cosmos, and taking the past, origins and knowledge as starting points, artists Salvatore Arancio, Flora Parrott, Nilsson Pflugfelder and Stuart Whipps present a range of new work in the gallery and across Wysing’s site.

Each artist has developed a distinct body of work in response to this residency and through conversations with a range of local experts and enthusiasts in a programme of public events and informal meetings aimed at exploring the huge concepts that constitute our understanding of The Cosmos. These new works explore, in some way, the manner in which we structure knowledge in science, spiritualism and in human culture more generally. This period of research has generated the beginnings of many projects and the works shown here are the first iteration of larger bodies of work that the artists will continue to develop.

Salvatore Arancio has developed a series of works playing the visualisation of science and the merging of fact and myth in knowledge. Drawing on his interest in historic illustrations of geological discoveries he is exhibiting a large screen-print of minute grains of a piece of granite, alongside a series of small collage works. A series of new works in clay, undergoing a period of drying before being fired, are shown in our ceramics studio, where they have been made. Our recycled structure Amphis, 2008, is the location for the screening of a video made entirely from clips from the series The Cosmos by Carl Sagan with a new soundtrack by Arancio. The film encompasses imagery picturing theories from physics, the human body and built environments through history and has the visionary, almost psychedelic, low-fi appearance of a 1980s vision of the future.

The sculptural works developed by Flora Parrott during this residency and presented in the gallery, attempt to think through abstract concepts using manipulated organic materials including coal, silk and oyster shells. Four compositions of images and objects act as frameworks to understand four particular concepts: deep time and compression, singularity and expansion and interconnectedness and the primordial mound. Through research into the use of Mandalas, ancient tools for spiritual focus, Parrott has been exploring the physical and psychological filters that people instinctively put in place that allow us to define the limits of conscious thought and prevent constant contemplation of enormous, paralysing ideas. The works presented here could act as frameworks that interrupt or disrupts these filters to allow fluid thought.

The work of Nilsson Pflugfelder (Magnus Nilsson and Ralf Pflugfelder) is situated on the intersection of critical spatial design, architecture, art and discourse. As a response to The Cosmos they have proposed a large, gleaming outdoor structure to be situated in the grounds of Wysing. This galvanised steel triangle will act as a contemporary folly-like space with no obvious function and no obvious entrance. Although the sculpture will have a minimal, futuristic feel, its typology, proportions and atmosphere reference ancient structures. The lack of discernible purpose for this strangely rarefied space may give it the feeling of a site of pilgrimage. Within the gallery is sited a black object which will become the central element of the structure, once complete.

Stuart Whipps often takes overlooked narratives from recent history as the starting point for making films and images. During The Cosmos he has been researching Edward James, an eccentric character who used his personal wealth, power and influence to solidify and materialise his unconventional beliefs. Whipps will present a series of images taken in Las Pozas; James’ surrealist concrete garden (built from 1949 – 1984) set in the rainforest in Mexico. The images, projected medium format slides, show the casts used to make the concrete sculptures, the sculpture and its surrounding forest.

This year artist Patrick Coyle is documenting our residency programme through performance and writing. At 6.30pm on 12 May, Coyle will present a performative tour interpreting the works of the four residency artists. Documentation of this will be available in Wysing’s reception alongside a reading area and further information on all the artists.

The exhibition continues until 27 May and is open daily, 12-5pm.

The Cosmos is funded by Arts Council England and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

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