Francis Upritchard
25 Oct 2014 - 01 Mar 2015
Francis Upritchard
Yellow Head, Long Snout Dinosaur, 2014
Balata. 11 x 37 7/16 x 11 7/16 in. (28 x 95 x 29 cm). Courtesy of the artist; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Kate MacGarry, London.
Yellow Head, Long Snout Dinosaur, 2014
Balata. 11 x 37 7/16 x 11 7/16 in. (28 x 95 x 29 cm). Courtesy of the artist; Anton Kern Gallery, New York; and Kate MacGarry, London.
FRANCIS UPRITCHARD
25 October 2014 - 1 March 2015
Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand and based in London, Francis Upritchard creates sculptural installations featuring archetypal figures—the psychic, the African, the nincompoop—hovering in a state of uncertainty. Modeled in polymer clay, the curious figures are rendered in a slightly unnerving scale, not quite human but large enough to look you in the eye with their only partially opened eyes and blank stares. The skin is painted monochromatically or with distinct gridded patterns, the tones ranging from sickly yellow to mossy green to calming blue, as if from an otherworldly tribe. Yet their handmade and hand-dyed garb suggest they might be characters from a range of past eras, from medieval knights and jesters to meditating hippies in the 1960s. For a recent exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Upritchard experimented with both form and material, creating a group of dinosaurs out of papier-mâché or an earthy matter drawn from rubber trees in Brazil called balata and displaying them on simple yet elegant fold-out tables produced by the Italian company Olivetti on customized steel bases. For her Hammer Project, Upritchard will bring together the figures and the dinosaurs for the first time. Inhabiting the space like strange bedfellows from different times and places, the characters are not so much actors in a legible narrative or drama as they are complexly enigmatic, strangely absorbed in their own thoughts. Equally drawn to the history of figurative sculpture as to a wide range of craft and artisan traditions around the world—from ceramic techniques to glass blowing, enameling to welding—Upritchard pushes these practices in new directions, bringing them together to create a striking and original visual language of her own. This will be Upritchard’s first solo exhibition on the west coast.
The exhibition is organized by Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood with MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial assistant.
25 October 2014 - 1 March 2015
Born in New Plymouth, New Zealand and based in London, Francis Upritchard creates sculptural installations featuring archetypal figures—the psychic, the African, the nincompoop—hovering in a state of uncertainty. Modeled in polymer clay, the curious figures are rendered in a slightly unnerving scale, not quite human but large enough to look you in the eye with their only partially opened eyes and blank stares. The skin is painted monochromatically or with distinct gridded patterns, the tones ranging from sickly yellow to mossy green to calming blue, as if from an otherworldly tribe. Yet their handmade and hand-dyed garb suggest they might be characters from a range of past eras, from medieval knights and jesters to meditating hippies in the 1960s. For a recent exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Upritchard experimented with both form and material, creating a group of dinosaurs out of papier-mâché or an earthy matter drawn from rubber trees in Brazil called balata and displaying them on simple yet elegant fold-out tables produced by the Italian company Olivetti on customized steel bases. For her Hammer Project, Upritchard will bring together the figures and the dinosaurs for the first time. Inhabiting the space like strange bedfellows from different times and places, the characters are not so much actors in a legible narrative or drama as they are complexly enigmatic, strangely absorbed in their own thoughts. Equally drawn to the history of figurative sculpture as to a wide range of craft and artisan traditions around the world—from ceramic techniques to glass blowing, enameling to welding—Upritchard pushes these practices in new directions, bringing them together to create a striking and original visual language of her own. This will be Upritchard’s first solo exhibition on the west coast.
The exhibition is organized by Hammer senior curator Anne Ellegood with MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial assistant.