Basement Gallery
Hundred Years Gallery is very proud to present the first solo show by local Hackney artist Emma Hunter. Emma was publicly voted as one of the two favourite artists selected in the open call ‘Now in Reverse’ during December 2014 at Hundred Years Gallery and rewarded with a solo show.
Private view on Thursday 26th of May from 7 to 9.30pm.
Exhibition has been extended until June 24.
Corporeal Disclosure is a presentation of sculptural objects concerned with both the physical and the psychological. The work is derived from reflections on past personal experiences and research into emotional states found commonly documented in the deterioration and destruction of the self.
Hunter’s work is abstract in form but bodily in nature. Insight is gained from the ancient, mythical and anthropological. The work seeks to make concrete the unseen psychological notion as it might be experienced physically as an internal object/ organ of the body or as a reference to the whole self as viewed from outside. Through extrapolating and exposing these manifestations of emotional experience there is a search for understanding. Although dealing with often distressing conditions the work has, through its materiality, a contrasting approachability and at times playfulness. Both made and found objects are combined and utilised in the creation of these new forms. The found objects are mostly tools or machine parts; they are firm, hard and tend to hold an aggression and/or implied movement. They already have implicit in them a relationship to the human body and ideas of labour, use and usefulness. These parts are set against more delicate, soft, translucent materials to often create uncomfortable combinations. There is a rawness and spontaneity in expression that hopes to connect with the viewer, and allow consideration of their body and their own experience of psychological states.
Events:
First Thursdays open until late. Exhibition sound environment interpreted by Ackermann-Callow. Thursday 2nd of June from 6 to 9.30
Emma Hunter in conversation with Eugene Macki and Ellie Spruell. Saturday 28th May at 5pm
Biography:
Emma Hunter (b. 1978, Liverpool, UK) was brought up in Scotland and currently lives and works in Hackney, London. Hunter is an early career sculptor as well as a spatial designer and associate lecturer. Although creating art has always been part of Hunter’s life it was not until 2010 whilst undertaking her Masters in Interior Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art that sculpture was to become her principal focus. In 2011, after winning a competition, Hunter was commissioned by British Land to develop a temporary public artwork for Regent’s Place off Euston Road, London. In 2013 Hunter started tutoring at Chelsea College of Art. In 2014 career highlights included exhibiting sculpture as part of ‘The Spirit of Womanhood’ Exhibition at Gallery@Oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf, London; beingpart of the Royal Academy 2014 Summer Show and winning a solo show at the ‘Now in Reverse’ exhibition at the Hundred Years gallery. In 2014 Hunter was also awarded a bursary to join the Royal British Society of Sculpture and was artist in resident at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop. In 2015 Hunter completed two ambitious large scale permanent sculptural public artworks in Oldham, Greater Manchester with a further three smaller scale permanent works in progress.
General Practice:
Hunter works across a wide range of materials including cast bronze, iron, aluminium, ceramic, metal and wood as well as found objects. Work is driven by a general interest the anthropological, artefacts and ideas of use and function/ dysfunction. Although the initial investigation of form often starts as autobiographical there is always an element of searching for continuity from the ancient and the common. Hunter’s ‘objects’ are mostly bodily in nature but abstract in form. She works with instinct and intuition in the creation of sculpture that plays with both allure and danger, the disturbing and precarious.
