NOT EVEN NOTHING CAN BE FREE OF GHOSTS
FRANCES RICHARDSON
Mark Tanner Sculpture Award winner 2017/18
13 October – 16 December 2018
About the exhibition
Cross Lane Projects is proud to present a solo exhibition of new work by Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 2017/18 winner Frances Richardson.
Frances Richardson’s exhibition has been developed over the period of a year as the 15th recipient of the major UK sculpture award.
Marking a significant development in her practice, the exhibition Not even nothing can be free of ghosts presents a group of new works referencing the image of water and water’s metaphorical use to suggest state of mind. The artist is fascinated by the potential of things and places to hold information that is not explicit or measurable by traditional observation. Her new work aims to provoke a visceral as well as intellectual response in the viewer.
Mirrorings are apparent in several works in the exhibition, including a key piece titled Eidolon (shown below left). Eidolon is a Greek word for object and it applies equally to an idea and a thing. For this work, the artist found a piece of chipboard on the street in Deptford, London, interested in its distinctive shape, she explains: “I made a mirror image of the board in paper as a way of getting to know it – in making it out of another material, I’m measuring it with that material. The two sit together in a kind of Rorschach… a death moth …or are they wings?” The artist is interested in dualities; and Not even nothing can be free of ghosts investigates a splitting between the sense one can get from being with an object or place, and its measurable qualities.
Richardson’s approach to sculpture draws out and exposes inherent properties in materials and the language of making. Using wood, veneer, video and copper for her new works, Richardson says “The material, and the way that you process the material, is integral to the spirit and meaning of the piece…it’s the content of the work”.
The MTSA is one of the most significant awards for emerging UK artists working in the field of sculpture. Offering £8,000 towards the making of new work, it rewards outstanding and innovative practice, with a particular interest in work that demonstrates a commitment to the process, or sensitivity to material.
About the artist
Frances Richardson (born 1965 in Leeds, UK) received her MA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London in 2006. Previous to this she studied BA (Hons) Fine Art at Norwich School of Art and Design, Norwich. Richardson exhibits both nationally and internationally. Key solo exhibitions include: In times of brutal instability, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art, London Art Fair 2018, In Time, Coffeeismycupoftea Space, London 2018, Performed object: Fig.090616, Concrete Canvas, Trefforest Industrial Estate, Cardiff 2016, Loss of object and bondage to it Fig.2, Bermondsey Square Sculpture Commission, Vitrine Gallery, London 2015, Loss of object and bondage to it, Lubomirov- Easton, London 2014 and Ideas in the Making: drawing structure, Trinity Contemporary, London 2011. Richardson was awarded the Chiara Williams Contemporary Art SOLO AWARD in 2017 and nominated for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2015-17 in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery.
Not even nothing can be free of ghosts tours to Cross Lane Projects from Standpoint Gallery, London.
Left: We have never been modern, 2018. Centre Image: Not all temporary objects can be avoided, 2018. Right: Split Object, 2018, Frances Richardson.
All images copyright the artist. Centre and right image: photography by Rebecca Larkin.