Tom
Morton
in
conversation
with
Francesca
DiMattio:
Thursday
11
October
5.30-‐6.30
pm
Champagne
Brunch:
Saturday
13
October
9.30
am-‐12
pm
Pippy
Houldsworth
Gallery
is
delighted
to
present
young
New
York
artist
Francesca
DiMattio’s
first
solo
exhibition
in
Europe
from
10
October
to
17
November
2012,
and
her
first
showing
in
London
since
her
large
scale
canvases
were
seen
in
Saatchi
Gallery’s
Abstract
America
in
2009.
Bloemenhouder
and
Kandelaar
offers
us
the
opportunity
to
see
DiMattio’s
vibrant
and
painterly
sculptures
standing
on
their
own,
showing
the
vitality
and
eccentricity
of
the
large-‐scale
ceramic
pieces
she
has
been
developing
over
the
past
two
years.
DiMattio's
paintings
have
often
made
reference
to
feminine
craft
techniques
such
as
sewing,
weaving
or
quilt
making.
In
an
attempt
to
shift
the
assumption
that
these
crafts
are
most
often
delicate
or
small-‐scale
domestic
creations,
she
scales
them
up
and
uses
a
rougher,
more
masculine
hand.
Keeping
with
an
interest
in
domestic
craft,
it
is
fitting
that
her
sculptures
are
formed
from
ceramic.
Using
a
material
deeply
ingrained
in
rules,
craft
and
history,
she
turns
it
on
its
head
by
irreverently
pulling
from
its
history
and
pairing
extravagant
reference
with
crude
slabs
marked
by
fingers
and
punch
marks.
In
this
exhibition,
DiMattio
investigates
the
history
of
porcelain
to
examine
the
ways
in
which
visual
iconography
moves
through
culture.
She
looks
at
how
porcelain’s
visual
history
is
one
of
copies,
fakes
and
re-‐makes;
how
a
revered
technique
such
as
the
blue
and
white
design
found
on
a
Ming
Vase
was
copied
by
the
English,
Dutch
and
French,
morphing
and
changing
slightly
through
each
iteration,
and
can
now
be
found
on
a
kitsch
object
in
a
gift
shop.
Like
her
paintings,
the
sculptures
here
juxtapose
conflicting
historical
references,
from
18th
century
English
Wedgwood,
French
Rococo
and
Ming
Dynasty
to
kitsch
animal
figurines.
These
are
grafted
objects,
fusing
disparate
elements
into
a
curious
new
whole.
Each
piece
is
made
completely
as
one,
rather
than
from
found
forms
put
together
after
the
firing.
The
different
passages
affect
one
another,
with
glaze
from
one
element
interrupting,
transforming
and
connecting
multiple
facets
of
the
same
sculpture.
DiMattio’s
new
work
incorporates
bases
and
handles
of
various
forms,
from
gilded
heaps
of
clay
to
delicately
sculpted
adorning
flowers.
Bases
of
piled
up
clay
are
reminiscent
of
Chris
Ofili's
elephant
dung,
whilst
a
slumping
torso-‐like
coil
pot
seems
on
the
verge
of
collapse.
Debris
made
by
sculpting
animalia
has
been
collected
and
put
on
the
adjacent
surface,
creating
a
rough
texture
made
of
dust,
chunks
and
trimmings,
and
elements
in
high
gloss
sit
next
to
bright
matte
colour.
DiMattio
creates
unstable
and
shifting
objects
that
are
a
combination
of
various
logics
of
taste.
In
Cuvette
à
Tombeau,
one
moment
the
china-‐
painted
landscape
is
beautiful
and
the
bright
rough-‐textured
yellow
feels
broken,
crude
or
flawed,
and
on
a
second
look,
the
texture
becomes
vibrant
and
rich,
whilst
the
landscape
becomes
something
you
might
find
in
a
thrift
shop.
The
changeability
of
taste
is
heightened
and
examined
through
DiMattio’s
uncanny
pairings
that
ask
the
viewer
to
look
closely
at
and
interrogate
these
new
abstract
and
de-‐hierarchised
forms.
Francesca
Di
Mattio’s
other
recent
solo
exhibitions
include
those
at
the
ICA,
Boston;
The
Suburban,
Chicago;
Salon
94,
New
York,
Portugal
Arte
10;
and
Locust
Projects,
Miami.
She
has
also
been
part
of
major
group
and
survey
exhibitions
recently
at
venues
including
the
Saatchi
Gallery,
London;
Cluj
Museum,
Romania;
Centre
for
Contemporary
Art,
Ujazdowski
Castle,
Warsaw:
5th
Prague
Biennial;
Casey
Kaplan
Gallery,
New
York;
Tanya
Bonakdar,
New
York;
and
New
Jersey
Museum
of
Contemporary
Art.
Opening
Hours:
Mon-‐Fri
10-‐6,
Sat
10-‐4.
For
further
information,
please
contact
Claire
Nichols
on
+44
(0)20
7734
7760
or
claire@houldsworth.co.uk.
|
