A new sculpture exhibition curated by John Stephens for Cross Lane Projects
Cross Lane Projects launches its 2020 programme with the exhibition Made With… considering materiality in contemporary sculptural practice. Curated by John Stephens, this new group show of contemporary sculpture presents work by artists Maxine Bristow, Anna Fairchild, Sian-Kate Mooney and Mark Woods.
Made With… is concerned with materials, not just as the means by which art objects are made but also with the ways in which the intrinsic qualities of materials and associated processes determine the form and the meaning of art objects. Their use of materials reflects the artists’ interests in social issues and issues of culture, gender and sexual politics, psychoanalytics, psychogeography and semiotics.
Independent curator Stephens has selected artists whose practices ultimately draw attention to the very materiality of the stuff they work with. Stephens has previously been a Director and Curator with artist-run Castlefield Gallery in Manchester.
There will be a seminar/discussion with talks by the artists and the curator on the theme of The Material Object on Saturday 18th April 2020.
Cross Lane Projects is a dedicated space for contemporary art in Kendal; the only space of its kind in Cumbria. Its founders are Cumbria-born artist Rebecca Scott and her husband, Mark Woods, a sculptor, who uses part of the Cross Lane warehouse building as his studio. Since opening in June 2018 the gallery has presented an inaugural exhibition of works by Paula Rego and Rebecca Scott, the first northern tour of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, the acclaimed group show AutoDestruct and enters its third year of operating with an exciting programme of original exhibitions with an emphasis on sculpture. Cross Lane Projects is housed in a strikingly converted Mint Cake factory in central Kendal.
Maxine Bristow
Maxine Bristow is based in the north west of England and has a background in textiles. She considers the complex material and semantic conventions of the medium of textiles in her work, including the everyday functioning environment, modernist legacies and postmodern discourses with which the medium is entangled. Her expanded artistic practice takes the form of wall- and floor-based objects, sculpture and installation.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in the permanent collections of the Crafts Council, London; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery. She was selected for The Jerwood Textiles Prize in 2002, and in 2008 was one of the nominated artists for the Northern Arts Prize.
Anna Fairchild
Anna Fairchild works with sculpture, film and photography. Her practice includes the process of direct casting of spaces. Through a material and process-led operation her creative practice has asserted a balance of rational decision-making with an intuitive approach – out of which emerge works that are to a large extent unanticipated. The material processes she uses enable a mapping of traces of unseen places, giving form to fragments of images, memories and experience.
Selected solo exhibitions include; Mill Flow, 2019, Mill Green Museum, Hatfield UK; The Fluid and the Fixed, 2019, University of East London; Virtual Shift, 2018, Luton Culture/Arts Council England, The Storefront, Luton Bedfordshire.
Sian-Kate Mooney
With a background in fashion and textiles Sian-Kate Mooney has over the past ten years developed a sculptural practice eschewing conventional sculptural materials in favour of those used to make utilitarian things. For example, she has used recycled fabrics and fashion items, latex, building materials, self-fabricated soap, felt, and combinations of these. Having been a fashion designer, much of her work acknowledges the human dimension.
Recent exhibitions include Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2015), London; Fall of the Rebel Angels (2015), Venice, Italy; Pravac Sila (2014) Ozone Gallery, Belgrade, Serbia, Directional Forces 4 (2014) Artoll, Bedburg-Hau, Germany; Vroom (2014) London; Chinese Open (2014) Q-Park, Soho, London; Colony 55, Sale Docks (2013), Venice, Italy and Directional Forces 2 (2013) Artoll, Bedburg-Hau, Germany, for which she was also co-curator.
Mark Woods
Mark Woods uses a range of materials that include epoxy resins, silk, leather and faux materials to create ‘transgressive’ objects that reflect an extraordinarily high level of execution. These materials become part of the objects’ allure, eroticism and ambiguity; connecting to the viewer’s sense of the fetishistic. They have been described as laying bare a fascination with the “fraudulent simulation phenomena of a society increasingly obsessed with glamour and pornography”.
His previous solo exhibitions include Lubomirov/Angus Hughes Gallery, London (2017); Saturnia, Brussels, Belgium (2012) and The Wapping Project, London (2010). Group exhibitions include Holburne Museum, Bath, England and international presentations in Italy, Israel, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the USA in 2017 to 2019.
About the curator
John Stephens is a painter with a particular interest in a pared-down abstraction. His curatorial interests embrace a wider range of artistic practices outside his own that include installation, photography, performance and mixed material processes.
During the 1980s and 1990s he was involved as a director and curator with the artist-run Castlefield Gallery in Manchester. Between 2004 and 2006 he curated the exhibition space at Luton’s Hat Factory. He is involved with various artists’ groups, projects and exhibitions in London and in residencies in Croatia, Germany, and Italy. He has recently written for the online journals Saturationpoint and Artlyst
Exhibition dates: 21 March to 9 May 2020, Wednesday to Saturday, 12 to 5 pm
Opening preview: Friday 20 March 6-8pm
