on the wall and off again...

Moribund Mural (Creeper's Delight), 2006
salt dough, size variable

‘Not interested if it doesn't hang on a wall’ seem to be my thinking at the moment.  I’m a traitor to my profession!  Sorting out images of wall pieces I have made in the last few years and uploading them on new pages on my website could have contributed to this.  Another reason might be my recent visit to the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane to see the Contemporary Australia: Women exhibition, where a great number of large scale installations commissioned by the museum were relying on wall space.  In their upstairs galleries, a top class display of traditional and contemporary dilly bags and bicornual baskets hang on the walls, their open woven structures casting delicate and intricate sideway shadows.  How can anyone in their right mind knock the sanctity of the white walled gallery space?

Yesterday I went to the opening of Collect, London’s contemporary art fair for contemporary objects and most of the works in their curated project space was wall based.  I was also really drawn to displays at Dutch Galerie Ra and Galerie Marzee, and last but not least Caroline Andrin’s works at the Belgian gallery WCC-BF, one of which I am the proud owner of since then. Andrin’s latest series of works consist of animal trophy like ceramic pieces, made using leather gloves as moulds.  The results are gorgeously dark, humorous and playful wall pieces. So, well done Benelux! Then again, I might be biased given I was born and raised in the lowlands myself. 

Praising wall displays as I have, I have to set the record straight by saying how spectacular Raw Craft was, an exhibition within Collect curated by the Crafts Council with designer Michael Marriott and Brent Dzekciorius, head of retail operations at auction house Phillips de Pury & Company.  Showcasing contemporary furniture, the works were quite naturally floor standing.  Still, am curious to see how the show would have looked had the curators laid their hands on a few shaker hooks...  

Sweet Graffiti / Big Bang, 2007
royal icing, sweet, hundreds and thousands, size variable (detail)

Knitting Piece #13 (South Hill Park), 2006
wool, 3.5m x 3.5m

Molecule #1 (bobbin lace), 2009
found image, card, thread, pins on foam