The Gallery
Claire BarclayDeep Spoils
24 March - 02 June 2018
Private View, 6pm Friday 23 March
Reading Room Lecture: 1-2pm Thursday 22 March. FREE
ALEX Design Exchange, Alexandra Road. Supported by Swansea College of Art
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mission Gallery is pleased to present this exhibition by Claire Barclay, a Scottish artist known for creating large-scale installations, often made in situ and in response to the spaces in which they are shown.
For this exhibition, her first in Wales, Barclay will reimagine and adapt existing works in order that they may be given another life in a new context. The sculptural forms inhabiting the gallery will reflect the city’s industrial heritage and embody evidence of the human endeavour, labour and skill that would have been echoed in the local coal, copper and pottery industries. She has described making exhibitions as a ‘pause in an ongoing process’, and the work shown at Mission Gallery connects to and is developed from, forms made for other spaces; Tramway in Glasgow and at Kelvin Hall for Glasgow International.
Barclay’s work juxtaposes the space of the gallery with that of the everyday. The objects she produces are imbued with qualities that are both familiar and strange. Her practice is deeply rooted in process and craftsmanship, positioned between the handcrafted and industrially produced. Her installations include an array of materials that oscillate between those associated with mechanisation and those situated within the domestic: steel, cast-concrete, ceramic aluminium, rubber, canvas and printed fabric.
Claire Barclay is interested in how meanings are bound up in materials and substances and the potential drama of objects and materials when they coincide, collide, and interact. The body is always referenced in the form of the work and she addresses relationships between the human body and the industrial workplace, in particular, the physical states of strength and vulnerability that underlie human engagement with skilled manual work. The bodies of workers and the resilience and fragility of the body is suggested through the materials, tensions and sculptural forms.
This exhibition will provide a welcome opportunity to revisit and further explore the use of unstable, transient, ephemeral substances and examine the disconnect between the glorification of industrial achievements and the raw brutal nature of production.
Claire Barclay is based in Glasgow, where she also received an MA from Glasgow School of Art. In 2003, she represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale and was the focus of a solo exhibition ‘Half Light’, at the Tate Britain in 2004. More recently, she has made an exhibition, ‘Yield Point’, for Tramway, Glasgow. Other solo UK exhibitions have included, ‘Shadow Spans’, Whitechapel Gallery, London ‘Shifting Ground’, Camden Arts Centre, London, ‘Openwide’, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and ‘Ideal Pursuits’, Dundee Contemporary Arts. Her work is in public collections including Tate Modern; Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden; MUDAM, Luxembourg.
Claire Barclay is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
http://www.stephenfriedman.com/artists/claire-barclay/ http://www.clairebarclay.net/
Mae’n bleser gan Oriel Mission gyflwyno’r arddangosfa yma gan Claire Barclay, artist o’r Alban sydd yn adnabyddus am greu darnau sefydlog graddfa fawr, yn aml wedi’u creu ar safle gan ymateb i’r gwagleoedd arddangos.
I’r arddangosfa yma, ei chyntaf yng Nghymru, bydd Barclay yn ail-ddychmygu ac addasu darnau sydd yn bodoli’n barod er mwyn iddynt gael bywyd arall mewn cyd-destun newydd. Mi fydd y ffurfiau cerfluniol a welir yn yr oriel yn adlewyrchu etifeddiaeth ddiwydiannol y ddinas ac ymgor ori tystiolaeth o’r ymdrech dynol, llafur a sgiliau a fydd wedi eu hatseinio yn y diwydiannau glo, copr a chrochenwaith lleol. Disgrifir eu arddangosfeydd fel ‘seibiant mewn proses barhaol’, ac mae’r gwaith a ddengys yn Oriel Mission yn cysylltu ag yn datblygu ffurfiau a grëwyd i wagleoedd eraill; y Tramway yng Nglasgow a Neuadd Kelvin yng Nglasgow Rhyngwladol. Darparir yr arddangosfa yma gyfle croesawus i ail-ymweld ac archwilio’n bellach defnydd sylweddau ansefydlog, byrhoedlog, di anedig ac archwilio’r datgysylltiad rhwng gogoneddiad campau diwydiannol a natur grai fwystfilaidd cynhyrchiad.
Mae gwaith Barclay yn cydosod gwagle’r oriel gyda’r bob dydd. Mae’r gwrthrychau a gynhyrchir wedi eu treiddio gyda nodweddion sydd yn gyfarwydd a rhyfedd. Gwraidd ei hymarfer yw proses a chrefftwaith, wedi ei leoli rhwng crefft llaw a chynhyrchu diwydiannol. Mae ei darnau sefydlog yn cynnwys amrywiaeth o ddefnyddiau sydd yn osgiladu rhwng y rhai sydd yn gysylltiedig gyda mecanwaith a’r rhai cartrefol: haearn, concrit wedi ei gastio, serameg, alwminiwm, rwber, cynfas a abrig printiedig.
Mae gan Claire ddiddordeb yn y ffordd fod ystyr ynghlwm mewn deunyddiau a sylweddau a’r potensial o ddrama pan gai gwrthrychau a defnyddiau eu cyfuno, gwrthdaro a siarad gyda’i gilydd. Cyfeirir at y corff yn ffurf y gwaith gan gyfeirio at berthynas y corff dynol a’r lle gwaith diwydiannol, y cyflwr segol o gryfder ac eiddilwch sydd yn tanlinellu cyfraniad dynol gyda gwaith llaw sgiliol yn enwedig. Awgrymir cyrff y gweithwyr, hydwythder a breuder y corff trwy ddeunyddiau, tensiynau a ffurfiau cerfluniol.
Seliwyd Claire Barclay yng Nglasgow, lle derbyniodd M.A. o Ysgol Gelf Glasgow. Cynrychiolodd yr Alban yn y Venice Bienniale yn 2003 ac roedd yn ffocws arddangosfa unigol ‘Half Light’, yn y Tate Prydain yn 2004. Yn ddiweddar, gwnaeth arddangosfa ‘Yield Point’ i’r Tramway, Glasgow. Arddangosfeydd unigol eraill yn cynnwys, Shadow Spans’, Oriel Whitechapel, Llundain ‘Shifting Ground’, Canolfan Gelfyddydau Camden, Llundain, ‘Openwide’, Oriel Fruitmarket, Caeredin a ‘Ideal Pursuits’, Celfyddydau Gyfoes Dundee. Mae ei gwaith mewn casgliadau cyhoeddus gan gynnwys Tate Modern; Moderna Museet yn Stockholm, Sweden; MUDAM, Luxembourg.
Cynrychiolir Claire Barclay gan Oriel Stephen Friedman, Llundain.
Image/Delwedd: Bright Bodies, Glasgow International 2016, Kelvin Hall. Photo Credit: Ruth Clark
Other links / Linciau:
Glasgow International 2016:
http://glasgowinternational.org/events/claire-barclay-2016/
Tate Britain:
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/art-now-claire-barclay-half-light
Frieze:
https://frieze.com/article/claire-barclay-0
The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/sep/02/artist-week-claire-barclay
Download Mission Gallery’s digital brochure, March – Sept 2018 here
