If You Can’t Stand the Heat

Aisha Christison, Alicia Reyes McNamara, Aliyah Hussain, Amy Leung, Anne Ryan, Annie Attridge, Anousha Payne, Bea Bonafini, Cassie Griffin, Coco Crampton, Emily McCartan, Hannah Bays, Hannah Regel, Jessie Makinson, Katie Schwab, Lindsey Mendick, Ludovica Gioscia, Paloma Proudfoot, Rose Eken, Sally Hackett, Sandra Lane, Urara Tsuchiya, Victoria Adam, Yelena Popova, Zoe Williams

roaming projects is pleased to present If You Can’t Stand the Heat. Organised by Lindsey Mendick, Paloma Proudfoot and Ruth Pilston, the exhibition presents a collection works by 25 artists, brought together through a shared interest in materiality. From consumption to sensuality, daily life to science fiction, the artworks in the gallery manifest a variety of subjects, evoking disparate sentiments, but are united by a common theme: Clay.

The materiality of the clay creates tactile interest – we want to hold, to fondle, to turn the object over in our hands. With ceramics, the physical engagement of the artist and the pleasure in the material is palpable. It can be seen in the patterns and traces made in the fresh clay, in the incidental marks of the throwing process and in the subtle depressions and thumbprints left on the surface. These marks are visible in terracotta pots dug up from archaeological sites just as they are flaunted in the sculptures of the 21st century artist. Fired clay holds not only the memory of the maker, forged in place by the heat of the kiln, but also becomes an archive of the each successive user. The object in clay, be it a tea cup or a sculpture, becomes a palimpsest; an heirloom simultaneously conferring history whilst offering itself forward to renewed interpretation.

We all know how it feels to hold a ceramic object; most days, we eat off them, drink from them, piss into them. The recognisable motifs in the artworks here engage our tactile imagination; intimate forms – of cups and cigarettes, shells and reclining nudes – are imbued with both emotional and haptic familiarity. Each sculpture is reminiscent of a tactile experience evoking a sense of touch even without a human presence, like witnessing the sullied plates and empty glasses of last night’s dinner. In their familiarity, the weight, texture and significance of each piece can be comprehended without handling them. We’ve known the utilitarian counterparts of these objects – the bowl, the vase, the broken shard – and, as such, we know the coolness of a ceramic curve, the sharpness of a pointed edge.

If You Can’t Stand the Heat proposes a space in a liminal position between the familiar and the not-so-familiar. In this sanctuary, the known is subtly altered and subverted, creating an uneasy yet alluring limbo between the mundane and the magical.

Thank you to Sluice

12 – 28 January 2018
PV: Thu 11th January 2018, 18:00 – 21:00

Open Wed-Sun, 12:00 – 18:00
11 Bohemia Place, London, E8 1DU