28 August–
13 September 2020
Bosse & Baum is pleased to introduce a new work by Candida Powell-Williams titled Sonic Arrangements in the Infinite Fill (Duality). The work is split across two platforms, both online: Sonic Arrangements in the Infinite Fill (immaterial) with Art-o-Rama and Sonic Arrangements in the Infinite Fill (material) with Bosse & Baum.
In Sonic Arrangements in the Infinite Fill (material) at Bosse & Baum online, we are exhibiting a handmade ceramic bell in the shape of a figure motionlessly rests on a plinth whilst it’s audio restlessly marches on elsewhere. The ceramic bell is enwrapped by a snake formed from ceramic chains that articulate its body. The serpent through the ages has been both worshiped and demonised and has become a symbol of spiritual transformation and uncertainty. The artist repeatedly utilises the symbol, in this case to assert notions of duality, the animate and inanimate. Within the history of art the reclining or seated female body has often been depicted inert, lifeless, a form onto which we can project. But here, though the bell is physically still the work refutes that pliability, exploring the relationship between the inactivity of the object and the energy of sound piece, the material and the immaterial. Powell-Williams’s ongoing series of ceramic bells (2018- present) are based on 7th-6th century BC goddess idols which are believed to have signified the forces of nature and the onward march of time. Candida Powell-Williams’ versions are dressed in helmets, necklaces and masks and are holding various symbols, crystal balls, snakes, hares and other emblems. Each one refers to and accompanies the artist’s wider research and through these forms she also explores empowered female figures.
Images
Candida Powell-Williams, Bell idol (duality), 2020, glazed ceramics, copper wire, 50 x 35 cm
Candida Powell-Willliams creates installations which play with the relationship between sculpture, live performance and animation. Her research–based and process led sculptural practice is guided by questions about human attempts to understand our body in the universe through the connection between objects, action and belief. Powell-Williams’s sculptural landscapes are often a response to researching the slippage that occurs to the meaning of historical artefacts over time, aiming to confront our relationship to memory and storytelling. She manipulates historical narratives, plucking references from disparate eras, folding them into the present and condensing them into a singular experience. Using a range of materials and textures CPW references the vast language of the ever shifting meaning of symbols from architecture, industrial inventions to talisman, rendering them physical in modular forms or prop-like sculptures characterised by their wobbly geometry and apparently dissolving edges. Fabricated in sweet colour gradients the surfaces appear worn down like disneyfied relics. Fleeting performances explore gesture, touch and the permeable boundary of our bodies to the external environment and kinship to the animal kingdom. These interactions are documented in stuttering layered animations permeating the work with notions of time, presence and absence and addressing the changing nature of sculpture, performance and storytelling in the digital age.
Candida Powell-Williams (born 1984, lives in London) graduated from the RCA, London in 2011. Selected exhibitions and performances include: “The Gates of Apophenia,” Bosse and Baum London (2019), “Command Lines,” Void Gallery, Northern Ireland (2019) “Lessness, still quorum,” performance, Serpentine Galleries, London (2018); “Boredom and its Acid Touch,” Frieze Live, London (2017); “Tongue Town,” Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo (2017); “Cache,” Art Night Associate Programme, London (2017); PIC performance festival, Melbourne, Australia (2016); “Coade’s Elixir,” Hayward Gallery, London (2014). In 2018 Powell-Williams was artist in residence at the Warburg Institute London, was awarded the Mother Art Prize in 2018 and in 2013 was recipient of the Sainsbury Scholarship at the BSR, Rome. In 2019 common-editions published Powell-William’s tarot deck and artist book. In 2021 Powell-Williams will have a major new solo exhibition at Southwark Park Galleries London.
