Here/There is an exhibition by artist Charlotte Dawson, containing pieces developed during Abingdon Studios’ 2020 Work/Leisure residency and produced remotely in her Sheffield-based studio. The exhibition ties both locations together through a body of work that utilises the forms of common place homeware. The sculptures allude to the use of ordinary objects as both purposeful facilitators of work and as commemorative and complex harbourers of sentiment.
Dawson’s artistic practice is often concerned with the capability of over looked objects to become important cultural and personal touchstones. Here/There presents a collection of sculptures that directly questions the worth of objects used in both service and embellishment, by eliminating their practical nature and approaching the objects as a multiple collective, inhabiting the gallery space in familiar and dissenting ways. The pieces included in the exhibition settle somewhere between sculpture, functional object, souvenir, and commemoration.
Charlotte Dawson(b.1997) is an artist currently based in Sheffield, having studied at Norwich University of the Arts (2018). Charlotte has exhibited in multiple group exhibitions including the Bloc Projects Members Show and had her debut solo exhibition, Set in Sediment at Airspace gallery, Stoke on Trent (2019). In 2020 Charlotte received recognition as part of the Henry Moore,
Artist award Scheme.
The main premise for this exhibition arose from a period of Residency with Abingdon Studios in 2020. Due to the pandemic the residency was divided between onsite visits to Blackpool and the production of the work in my studio in Sheffield. The work itself thus became heavily influenced by both environments and within the pieces, a division between two locations became a focus as much as a conflict between functionality and sentimentality that I had already begun exploring through the subject matter of the art work.
The pieces were created with the division of Work/Leisure as a basis and I focused on Plates as an object that I felt held a contradiction within its objecthood. And the opportunity to explore all the alternative uses that people apply to a common household object.
Here/There as an exhibition has an addition contrast, provided through the experience of producing during that time period. Being forced to produce remotely between two locations. How this influenced the pieces I produced. And the great impact this had on how I would choose to exhibit the artworks over a year later.
Here are some images of the making process of the pieces. Showing my studio during my residency as the work environment that produced the pieces.
My practice focuses on the parameters of the ‘object’ and the multiple purposes and sentimental readings objects can possess. In this new body of work I pose questions around object worth, acts of mass production and duality of purpose within a vessel used in both forms of service and for decorative purposes- the humble plate.
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The exhibition follows a period of residency at Abingdon Studios in 2020, after which I was successful in an application to Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grant Fund. Which I will use to produce a solo exhibition of new works touring between Abingdon Studios, Blackpool and Bloc Projects, Sheffield. And create a publication documenting the project.
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