Grundy Art Gallery, Manchester City Galleries, Victoria Gallery & Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Whitworth Art Gallery
Helen Marten (b. 1985, Macclesfield, UK) lives and works in London having studied at The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. Recent solo exhibitions include Sadie Coles, London (2014), CCS Bard Hessel Museum, New York (2013), Chisenhale Gallery, London (2012), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012) and Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2012). Marten also exhibited as part of The Encyclopaedic Palace, 55th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale (2013).
Helen Marten uses sculptural assemblage and video to reflect upon the relationship between two and three dimensional form. Exfoliating curve lines (total cushioning) is the first time Marten has produced ceramic work of this scale. The work hints at figuration from one level removed where crassly simplified outlines have been bulbously inflated. The ceramic work serves as a repository for an elaborate sculptural tableaux whose assembled detritus creates a string of hieroglyphs, a kind of archaeological anagram: encrypted sequences present short bursts of personality and internal logic.
The Cathy Wills Sculpture Fund was generously initiated by Contemporary Art Society Trustee Cathy Wills in 2011. The fund enables five museums in the North West of England to develop their collections with contemporary sculpture through
co-acquiring works.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society, 2014, through the Cathy Wills Sculpture Fund