Charlotte Hodes exhibition
A new exhibition at London’s Marlborough Fine Arts showcases Charlotte Hodes’ latest body of work (1 December – 1 January)
Working in conjunction with a ceramist, Hodes makes elaborately decorated, richly coloured ceramic vessels. Originally inspired by the Sevres porcelain at the Wallace Collection, from a distance they look fairly conventional, but as you get closer you see that the surface decoration is made up of an eclectic, highly contemporary mix of historical motifs and patterns. Similarly the vessel shapes, you realise that they are not direct copies of 18th-century pots but a carefully thought-up amalgam of these traditional forms. ‘They’re made up of three interchangeable units as my work is led by collage and I wanted to have that same fragmentation in the vessel’s shape – I wanted them to jar a bit,’ she explains.
Hodes, who trained as an artist, winning the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2006, uses the vessel surface as a blank canvas, applying her pet images – female nudes, historical figures, skirt shapes, drapery and sprig patterns – in layers onto the clay. She works the surface using a variety of techniques including directly painting coloured slips, paper stencils, silk-screen and digital transfers, enamels and gilding to create a rich layer of pattern, full of historical references and contemporary juxtapositions.
www.marlboroughfineart.com
