Francis Gallery is pleased to announce that Yoon-Young Hur and Mari-Ruth Oda are showing works in Folds at Tristan Hoare, London.
Dedicated to the depiction of folds and drapery, the exhibition, curated with Flora Hesketh and Omar Mazhar, aims to bring focus to a subject which has challenged and interested artists throughout history, but often goes unnoticed. Traditionally, drapery studies were an important exercise in understanding the representation of light and shade, and the transition from two to three-dimensionality. Folds is not an academic survey of the history of drapery, but rather displays some of its skilled manifestations, from ancient cultures to contemporary artists, whose continued focus serves to revitalise its beauty and history.
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The concept of the fold is the inspiration and the making process for Yoon-Young Hur’s sculpture in clay, The Fold, #21 (2021). Referencing the way tectonic plates are shaped by time and force, the work is also inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s The Fold-Leibniz and the Baroque (1988). Hur associates undulating surfaces with the unpredictability and vulnerability of our lives, which can be embraced and sheltered, yet also allowed to unfold, grow, and open into multiple folds, or possibilities.
Dissolve (2020), a sculpture in Bath stone jesmonite by Mari-Ruth Oda, is part of a body of work inspired by a disagreement Oda had with her husband. Amidst the conflict, he said to her, “I hear you.” While working on a clay model, Oda found herself returning to how those words felt in her body, and began translating that into form. Dissolve, in particular, was inspired by the sensation of her core melting, and resentments and negative feelings dissolving. Each piece in the edition of eight is refined by hand to bring the essence of the inspiration behind it to life.
Folds
19 May - 02 July 2021
Tristan Hoare, 6 Fitzroy Square, London W1T 5DX
Photos: Alzabeta Jaresova
Words: Tristan Hoare & Francis Gallery