5 April 2010
24 March 2010

EXHIBITION 24 March 2010

Introducing Kerry Jameson, Nao Matsunaga & Dawn Youll
24th March to 30th April, Marsden Woo Gallery



Marsden Woo Gallery would like to announce an exhibition of the most up and coming artists in contemporary ceramics. Kerry Jameson, Nao Matsunaga and Dawn Youll are the newest artists to be represented by Marsden Woo. All three have been shortlisted for the 2011 Arts Foundation Award for Ceramics, the winner of which is announced at the end of January.

KERRY JAMESON
In this exhibition Kerry Jameson focuses on the body and mortality, with her main piece consisting of a large blackened ceramic corpse. Inspiration comes from art of the Late Gothic and Medieval period, from research into past medical practices and tools at the Wellcome Collection and the Science Museum, and from her interest in the survival of fragments from antiquity. Jameson works in ceramics and mixed media, often incorporating canvas and hessian into her pieces when she feels she can no longer continue with ceramic. She describes her working process as ‘joining and marrying different materials, creating an
environment (a material world) which gives rise to an emotional world’. She says ‘work starts with a thought or feeling, an undigested experience that needs to be worked through’.

NAO MATSUNAGA
Nao Matsunaga creates organic abstract sculptures, which although non-referential frequently provoke various subconscious associations. He seeks to create his own visual language, ‘rather than cut and paste other peoples’’. Modernist influences remain strong in his work for this exhibition, which consists of both floor and plinth-based sculptures.His floor pieces are placed upon wooden stands made of found sticks, cherry wood or oak. The wooden surfaces are carved with markings that resemble tree bark; almost parodying the material they are made of. These supports form a literal and conceptual framework for the Stoneware pieces they hold, and are created simultaneously with the ceramics as part of the same thinking process. Their fragile appearance highlights Matsunaga’s Modernist concern with line, weight and weightlessness.

DAWN YOULL
Dawn Youll is inspired by her surroundings – the urban landscape, the studio environment, and the making process itself. Her work frequently consists of pairs, which are developed separately and gradually, until a body of work as a whole is formed. Youll then curates these into combinations that explore potential narratives. She explains that ‘within my collection of objects that are performing various supporting roles, I hope to present the viewer with a landscape full of potential’.Youll cites abstract ceramist Ron Nagle as an important influence, as he ‘manages to sum up the idea of place’. She strips back her subject matter to a simple outline, which is then built up into semi-abstract, three-dimensional forms. Surface is added to these blank components, often with intensely rich colour. Through research into her own environment, form, colour, surface and often words are carefully considered, providing the reference points evoked in her semi-abstract ceramic sculptures