Curious Duke Gallery artist Kristin Gaudio Endlsley will be taking over our East London space as we head to Affordable Art Fair Hampstead next week (stand C3), with a group show called Other Altars. 

 

You can catch Kristin’s, Florence Devereux and Taïs Bean’s exhibition Tuesday 14th- Saturday 18th June at Curious Duke Gallery

173 Whitecross Street

London, EC1Y 8JT

Open Tuesday – Friday 11:30-6:30, Saturday 12-4

Free

 

 

Here we talk to the three artists to find out about the exhibition and the meaning of Other Altars.

 

“We live in an age where the environmental crisis is causing humans to face up to our self-interested activities and out lack of respect for the ecosystems of which we are a part. How do we reconnect with the wider community of being and start acting as a beneficial species within the larger earth network? This exhibition presents a tentative response, with work made from a worldview that sees the divine in everyday objects and situations. Can breathing life into functional objects, honoring the water that falls in our gardens, and recognize the active power of the symbols around us, help us stop objectifying our environment, and enter a collaborative relationship with it instead? 

This show presents three artists understanding of the beauty in the everyday experience and their attempt to reclaim the Other- the sacred that we have pushed to the side. Throughout the week visitors will be not only be able to see the pieces, but participate in several performances that allow them to connect with the community around them and these simple everyday rituals that tie us all together.

 

 

Adam, Jean, Sky by Taïs Bean

 

Florence Devereux made the series of still life paintings 'Carmen's Studio' between 2014/15 while working for her painting master Carmen Galofré in the small Spanish village, Cabrera De Mar.  Florence's relationship with Carmen started when she was 10 years old, having been sent to spend time with Carmen's daughters. Florence and Carmen enjoyed the silence of the studio and each others presence while painting, and have maintained this relationship until the present day.  Florence made this series of still lives and views of the studio as a nod of respect to this space that has become imbued with meaning for her over the years.  Florence senses a rich texture in the air, a thickness of silence in Carmen's studio. Florence imagines the layers of attention that Carmen has given the objects in the room and they shimmer with a special glow. These everyday objects are transformed into objects of reverence, objects worthy of attention and time. This painting series is a homage to her teacher Carmen, and the beautiful tone that runs through her studio.

Still Life 1 by Florence Devereux

 

Taïs Bean's work steams from automatic writing, meditative singing, and other techniques that allow the unconscious to express itself. She uses this material to craft her own symbols and produce narratives that are heavily informed by her interest in Myths and Jungian psychoanalysis. Her choice of medium depends on the way in which it allows to unravel a narrative. For the last few years, Taïs has been looking at themes such as transformation, passage rituals, symbolic death and re-birth, lineage and transgression, individuation… This piece is an altar to the animus, the masculine side of the feminine.

Presented as a sculptural narrative, it is a nomadic collection, an assemblage of symbols that attempts to breath life and intention into a healing tale. From Rocks Birds are Born, is part of an ongoing experiment on crafting different rites of passages for specific parts of the psyche. 

Collecting: recognizing an object, open to identification. Projecting onto/into it or Receiving its soul?

Assembling, creating a language, building bridges, altering, are widening a meaning. 

Swimming With My Mother in the Rain by Kristin Gaudio Endsley

 

Kristin's work began many years ago with the exploration of applying water onto already painted surfaces.  Attempting to achieve pieces that had an organic mixture of man made and nature.  What is in our control and is what other forces control?  This led to the process of incorporating rain within her paintings.  After spending a month in Somerset England practicing this application she was able to capture the visual interpretation of what she calls memories of the rain. Being present in a moment or a small span of time.    From this time of being in the countryside Kristin went on to interpret not only water but also land.  Feeling a strong primitive sense to create work from the earth she began a series of pottery pieces out of stoneware and earthenware clay.  She has sculpted several vessels for the show, Other Altars that serve a functional purpose as well as a statement about the land.  Pottery often used in homes to serve and decorate, take on a sacred value in noticing the importance of these everyday rituals that surround us.  The works asks the viewer to have not only a visual relationship with the art, but a tactile one as well.   

“When we look carefully at the land or sea, we come to the heart of who we are and connect with the earth. I want my paintings to have first a memory of ocean, water, air or land — then connect us with the spirit, and leave us an awareness that we are all Nature.” S Budnik

 

 

 

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Written by Curious Duke Gallery blogger Sinéad Loftus.

Lover of all art and fluffy cats.