Clearings
Lydia Gifford, Anna-Bella Papp and Clementine Keith-Roach
Blue Projects presents Clearings, an exhibition of works by artists Lydia Gifford, Anna-Bella Papp and Clementine Keith-Roach.
Comprised of sculpture, painting and works on paper, Clearings considers the creation of space as a site where materials can amass and interact – a surface onto which new activity and thoughts can emerge. The exhibition brings together three artists whose work is concerned with mark-making and process, and the physicality of their material.
New ceramic works by Clementine Keith-Roach are rendered bodily and intimate by the addition of breasts, arms and hands, which animate their classical forms. Across the surfaces of the vessels, paint and clay collide in layers that propose a potential for growth or visual change.
Moving between representation and abstraction, Anna-Bella Papp’s sculptures are presented horizontally on a surface. Their tablet-like forms propose a reading of the artist’s marks and impressions onto the unfired hand-sculpted clay. The works call to mind materials and realms outside themselves while still insisting on their own physical reality, offering a topography of control and experimentation within the confines of their format.
Lydia Gifford’s work offers an experience of interrelated objects, consumed surfaces, and textural and physical nuances. Her works capture the traces of her activity, tracking and layering decisions atop another, and explore movement as a vehicle to generate meaning. Objects engage with each other in a palpable rhythm and reveal a choreographed series of encounters through their tactile presences.
Clementine Keith-Roach (b. 1984, UK) lives and works in Dorset, UK. Selected exhibitions incude store front: Full Haus: The Seeld Library at MOCA, Los Angeles (2018); Mademoiselle at Centre Regional D’art Contemporaine (CRAC), Sète (2018); ARCHEOLOGI at The Villa Lontana, Rome (2018); and Herm in collaboration with Edizione Precarie for Pervilion, Palermo (2018). Keith-Roach recently curated the group exhibition Interiority at Hunter Harrison, London.
Anna-Bella Papp (b. 1988, RO) lives and works in Antwerp, BE. Selected solo and two-person exhibitions include A better view / A better layout / A better shower / Softer bed / Not so far from noise / More like home at Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Milan (2017); In my heart there is a room designed by you at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2016); and Anna-Bella Papp / Chris Succo at Spazio Cabinet, Milan (2016). Recent group exhibitions included Unbound – The Unexpected Constellation, curated by Zita Sárvári at Hybridart Space, Budapest (2018); Theories of Modern Art, Modern Art, London (2016); and I am attracted none the less…. at Casey Kaplan, New York (2015). Papp will have a solo exhibition at Modern Art, London in March.
Lydia Gifford (b. 1979, UK) lives and works in London, UK. Selected solo exhibitions include I am Vertical, Centre National d’Art et du Paysage, Ile de Vassiviere; To. For. With, Laura Bartlett Gallery, London; Drawn, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2014); Sliding, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2013); Midday, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; and Distances, Galerie Micky Schuert, Berlin, all 2012. Selected group exhibitions include Can’t Hear My Eyes, curated by Niekolaas Lekkerkerk, Nogueras Blanchard, Madrid; White, Simon Dickinson, New York; Prairies, 3rd Edition of Les Ateliers de Rennes: Contemporary Art Biennale, Rennes; Minimal Myth, Museum Bojimans, Rotterdam; and Jonathan Binet, Lydia Gifford and David Ostrowski, BolteLang, Zurich, Switzerland.