Intuition Goes Before You
Intuition Goes Before You is an exhibition organised by curator Vittoria Beltrame, showcasing five artists tied together by the execution of their works, due to their expressivity and bodily implications. The realisation of these works is almost performative, regardless of if the works are of larger or smaller scale - there is always an implication of the gestural expression of the artist. The exhibition aims at highlighting the visceral experience of these artists focusing on the process of the creation of their work, pushing the audience to focus on the process rather than only seeing the finished product. An artwork can take hours, weeks and even months to make: let us celebrate the creative process that takes place when producing a piece of art.
Isabella Lolita Amram, Helen Bermingham, Ashley Cluer, Eva Dixon and Rebecca Hardaker all play around with different themes, yet regardless of whether their work is inspired by their childhood, by landscape, or by spirituality, they all execute it throwing their entire selves into it. Some of them might dance while working, some others might paint and construct with their bare hands. Their process of creating it is an experience and an artwork in itself.
Isabella Lolita Amram’s practice is built on a foundation of radical processual embodiment, focusing on the process of painting as felt and experienced by the body. The intention behind Isabella’s practice is to bridge the gap between body and cosmos, meaning and material, and imagination and observation, through the use of the physical and tactile properties of paint and colour. Helen Bermingham’s process is centred around repetition. She repeats marks, images and brushstrokes from previous paintings into each subsequent new one. Helen is interested in the idea that every time she repeats a mark it changes - much like each time one recalls a memory. Ashley Cluer’s intimate sculptures are created from coarse, structural materials found in our urban environment. Her work reinterprets the everyday in order to encapsulate and hold poignant moments. Like in a Greek or Roman mythological tale, Ashley turns encounters and memories of people into everlasting objects that will forever encapsulate specific stories. Eva Dixon recently graduated from CSM and has been awarded the LVMH Earth Award. She investigates materials and subverts their purpose to fit a need within the work. The geometric forms in her work are pulled from construction, mirroring the appropriated materials she uses. Dixon blurs the lines between painting, sculpture and craft whilst investigating how the relationship between opacity and transparency can expose the structure and surface as one. Her work offers a site to question making process and the binaries between labours. Italian Post-War artists would similarly work with materials they would normally have in their studio and reinvent the canvas, cutting it up, twisting it, or even burning it. Artists like Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri and Piero Manzoni paved the way for a new experimentation with the flat surface, blurring the lines between a 2D work, often turning it into a 3D object. With an experimentation and use of materials, Dixon also manipulates these material turning objects typically found in construction sites, into elegant repurposed works. Rebecca Hardaker is a visual artist painting directly with her hands, making her work a tactile experience of expression. She works from reality as she creates abstract forms and shapes, presenting to the audience abstract landscape paintings with imaginative details, while sometimes incorporating excerpts from inspiring texts.
The exhibition is organised and curated by Vittoria Beltrame and is held at 13 Soho Square, W1D 3QF, from the 11th till the 20th of August.
As part of the experiences offered during the exhibition, a Q&A is held on the 19th morning hosted by writer and advisor Phoebe Minson with curator Vittoria Beltrame and participating artists Isabella Lolita Amram and Ashley Cluer. Amram will then offer a tarot card reading to a few selected participants to fully delve into this crucial part of her practice.
