#2 Vernacular – Invited Exhibitors

Henry Pim

Henry Pim’s small sculptures suggest maps, plans, or graphs, (all ways to sort and present information), and they also show an idea of a structural framework, like a building or an engineered structure. They are made from panels of extruded paper clay, using a technique, which continually mutates, revealing ever more possibilities. An important driver for evolution of the work is this technical unfolding.

This work aims to engage with the ‘making-sense-of-it’ mindset, which is a default mechanism for humans, and is at the heart of intelligence. The way we see the world depends on how we process the information that we are able to understand. The way that we contribute new things in the world depends on how we select the information that we employ. The way we feel about the world depends upon what we think it is and, most importantly, what we expect it might become.

www.henrypim.com

Gail Mahon

Working predominantly in installation, ceramic sculptures and collaborative projects Gail Mahon often draws focus from body theory; of bodies becoming and in constant state change – unmaking and remaking, unfolding permutations of the physiochemical, organic and anthropomorphisms wrapped up material culture to make speculations of emerging changes to environments and ourselves.

Her practice utilises knowledge of the ceramic process with found object interjections and material experiments to result in kinetic interplays and physical actions to unfold the process of transformation within her installation, photography and experimental studio films as unsettled arrangements, hovering and shifting. Mapping those disparate fragments of new and ancient landscapes – clay and ceramics reform to become carriers of the collapsed social and political spaces caught between the natural environment, post-industrial landscapes and our domestic situations of our own construction.

www.gailmahon.com

David Gates

David Gates designs and makes furniture from his studio in South London. His workbench looks across to the wharves, jetties, and silos of the river Thames; part of a landscape of industrial and agricultural architectural forms that inform his work. The rightness, balance, and expediency seen in these structures comprise a vernacular, one reflected in David’s use and adaptation of traditional, deliberate hand-making processes.

David was awarded a doctorate in Language Discourse and Communication from King’s College London for his phd thesis examining the relationship between craft and language. His research focussed on normally unnoticed and unremarkable narrative fragments in spoken discourse. His findings shows the work that locally-relevant talk does in craft practices, questioning the normative view of craft as tacit and silent

www.davidgatesstudioworkshop.co.uk