Group Exhibition
Ceramics & Graphite
14 July – 22 August 2015

Opening reception: Saturday 4th July, 7 pm
Until: 22nd August, 2015

Artists: Laura Aldridge, Felicia Atkinson, Peppi Bottrop, Lucy Coggle, Tommaso Corvi-Mora, Emilie Ding, Jérémie Gindre, Emma Hart, Hannah James, Klara Kayser, Marthe Krüger, Bevis Martin and Charlie Youle, Lucie Mičíková, Diogo Pimentão, Vanessa Safavi, Erik Steinbrecher, Ignacio Uriarte, J. Parker Valentine, Renata Ward

Text by Lilly Daniell

 Notes on the materials

During the summer, Chert will present the work of twenty artists who use ceramics and graphite in their practice.
This is an exhibition focused on mark-making with solid gestures and a kinetic immediacy of expression at the hand of a spiky pencil or a malleable putty.
An exhibition that invests in the expressive physicality of the materials.
To make an exhibition with the medium as its foundation is to start at the very beginning of the work.
To build an exhibition grounded by two humble materials, contests the turbulent, present-day-ness of a digitalised, pixelated culture.
Reckoning the tacit labour involved in the crafting.
Clay and pencil have endured the restless consumption of a culture driven by an attention deficit disorder.
Disregarding the slick apathy of digital surfaces for a glorious, sometimes grotesque, handmade reality.
Reducing the variables to see what happens.
That is, to open a window (or a vitrine) on contemporary drawing and sculpture, and view the work through the binoculars of the medium.
The earthly timelessness of ceramics and graphite references the historicity of the medium, echoing ancient, almost archaeological artefacts.
(Remember these materials facilitated the first marks of art-making.)
Solid, traditional mediums expressing contemporary customs and rituals.
Clay is a material that takes on aspects of the body, and shows the traces of its making.
Here are works that adopt the language of their own production.
The gesture of a pencil, and its erasures, is a return to planning, drafting and refining a skill.
The effort is not hard to see; the work involved is evident in the workability of the medium.
Forming, deforming and reforming these two visceral, immediate materials.

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A very special thank to: Kendall Koppe, Jan Kaps, Samy Abraham, Christiane Rekade, Simone Neuenschwander, Heike Kabisch, Michael Barthel, Julia Schleicher, Andreas Schleicher-Lange, Philipp von Rosen, Stefania Palumbo, Gigiotto del Vecchio, Max Mayer, Lilly Daniell, Gregorio Magnani, Alexis Zavialoff, Giammarco Cugusi, Egle Genutyte, Dirk Gehlen, Kasia Fudakowski.