Kimberley is the fourth Earl's Court Development Company portrait artist in residence, and I took Gaye and Eric to the opening of her exhibition at The Gallery yesterday evening. As well as running weekly art workshops, she has been putting her ceramics work into practice by creating mugs with portraits of local people embedded into them- not just painted on to the fired clay, but the faces also in profile as 'ears', so we get a complete impression of the people she's chosen to portray. Not only that, but there are inscriptions inside the mugs, so there's a 360-degree use of the medium. Around the walls, there are also 2D drawings of people she has come across during the residency.
The mugs are presented as a beautifully-coloured community on a trestle table in the middle of the gallery. They are exquisite and tender representations, often of people I recognise well after participating in the project a year ago. They are also extremely tactile, lovely to hold, and tempting to sort into little social groupings; I suppose you could say they are a redefinition of the term 'mug shots'! The gallery is just over the road from West Brompton tube station- do go and take a look if you can!
Photos show Kimberley with some of the portrait mugs, details of mugs, Mimi with her portrait, people in the gallery with their mugs, Alba with her portrait.
No comments:
Post a Comment