SOLO AWARD 2017/8
in times of brutal instability | frances richardson
LONDON ART FAIR | 17 - 21 JANUARY 2018
FRANCES RICHARDSON | WINNER OF THE 2017 SOLO AWARD™
IN TIMES OF BRUTAL INSTABILITY
STAND P31, ART PROJECTS, LONDON ART FAIR
17 - 21 JANUARY 2018
IN TIMES OF BRUTAL INSTABILITY
STAND P31, ART PROJECTS, LONDON ART FAIR
17 - 21 JANUARY 2018
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Chiara Williams Contemporary Art is proud to present the SOLO Award™ 2017 winner Frances Richardson in Art Projects at the London Art Fair 2018.
Frances Richardson was selected by Sarah Monk (Director London Art Fair), Robin Klassnik (Director Matt's Gallery), Lisa Le Feuvre (writer, curator, editor, Head of Sculpture Studies Henry Moore Institute, Leeds) and Chiara Williams (panel chair and Director Chiara Williams Contemporary Art).
'In times of brutal instability' is a new body of work by Frances Richardson, taking the simplicity of a post-it note as a starting point with which to respond to the temporary nature of the art fair and how this in turn relates to the temporality of the encounter with a sculpture or object.
The brief duration and makeshift structures that characterise the ‘art fair’ create a problematic context within which works of art can operate; this is nothing new. For an artist like Richardson, whose practice is usually site-responsive, the art fair offers her no site to visit, nothing concrete to relate to. The work created for this edition of the London Art Fair has been generated in the artist’s studio, where she has focused on the art fair as context, rather than site.
The post-it note here acts as a metaphor, through which we can experience the fleeting nature and tenuous balance of the art fair entity. After all, the post-it remains an office staple even in this digital age, but, as a consumable, flyaway, slither of paper, it is still subject to gravity and time: barely gummed to a surface, holding for a brief time words or doodles, a reminder, a note-to-self, an idea balanced on a wall. The post-it can also be read as metaphor for the market economy and instability of our financial and political climate, and the precarious position of an artist and art inside or outside of the art market.
‘Time spent making’ works of art is almost always going to be inverse to ‘time spent looking’ and/or consuming…much like a carefully prepared meal, it will either be savoured, devoured or disposed of; another metaphor by which we live, where the brutal exigencies of space and money mean that much of an artist’s work often ends up in a skip.
To counter this, Richardson spends a lot of time drawing. The activity of drawing is a rite of passage and a physical meditation on infinity and form. If the sculptures on which she works are, to her, a form of three-dimensional drawing, then it comes as no surprise that a scrawled statement on a post-it note on her studio wall should form the basis of her new sculpture.
Richardson’s new body of work ‘In times of brutal instability’ is in some ways a synthesis of the different elements of her practice to date, which all seem to neatly segue into the post-it note as a beautifully simple solution to the art fair ‘problem’.
Price list available on request. For further information and press quality images please contact Chiara Williams
[email protected]| T: @chiarawilliams_ | 07519646508
Frances Richardson was selected by Sarah Monk (Director London Art Fair), Robin Klassnik (Director Matt's Gallery), Lisa Le Feuvre (writer, curator, editor, Head of Sculpture Studies Henry Moore Institute, Leeds) and Chiara Williams (panel chair and Director Chiara Williams Contemporary Art).
'In times of brutal instability' is a new body of work by Frances Richardson, taking the simplicity of a post-it note as a starting point with which to respond to the temporary nature of the art fair and how this in turn relates to the temporality of the encounter with a sculpture or object.
The brief duration and makeshift structures that characterise the ‘art fair’ create a problematic context within which works of art can operate; this is nothing new. For an artist like Richardson, whose practice is usually site-responsive, the art fair offers her no site to visit, nothing concrete to relate to. The work created for this edition of the London Art Fair has been generated in the artist’s studio, where she has focused on the art fair as context, rather than site.
The post-it note here acts as a metaphor, through which we can experience the fleeting nature and tenuous balance of the art fair entity. After all, the post-it remains an office staple even in this digital age, but, as a consumable, flyaway, slither of paper, it is still subject to gravity and time: barely gummed to a surface, holding for a brief time words or doodles, a reminder, a note-to-self, an idea balanced on a wall. The post-it can also be read as metaphor for the market economy and instability of our financial and political climate, and the precarious position of an artist and art inside or outside of the art market.
‘Time spent making’ works of art is almost always going to be inverse to ‘time spent looking’ and/or consuming…much like a carefully prepared meal, it will either be savoured, devoured or disposed of; another metaphor by which we live, where the brutal exigencies of space and money mean that much of an artist’s work often ends up in a skip.
To counter this, Richardson spends a lot of time drawing. The activity of drawing is a rite of passage and a physical meditation on infinity and form. If the sculptures on which she works are, to her, a form of three-dimensional drawing, then it comes as no surprise that a scrawled statement on a post-it note on her studio wall should form the basis of her new sculpture.
Richardson’s new body of work ‘In times of brutal instability’ is in some ways a synthesis of the different elements of her practice to date, which all seem to neatly segue into the post-it note as a beautifully simple solution to the art fair ‘problem’.
Price list available on request. For further information and press quality images please contact Chiara Williams
[email protected]| T: @chiarawilliams_ | 07519646508
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Frances Richardson | www.francesrichardson.co.uk
Frances Richardson (b.1965 Leeds) lives and works in Clapham, South London. She studied at Jacob Kramer, Leeds College of Art, Norwich School of Art and the Royal College of Art, graduating with an MA in Sculpture in 2006 and presented with the Conran Award for overall best graduate exhibition. She is the recipient of the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 2017-18. Museum collections include Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, USA, Portland Art Museum, Portland, USA. Publications in which her works feature include The Art of Drawing: British Masters and Methods since 1660 by Susan Owens, V&A, 2013 and Vitamin D: New Perspectives on Contemporary Drawing, Phaidon NY 2005. Recent selected exhibitions (sculpture and installed works) include: Loss of object and bondage to it Fig.2, Bermondsey Square Sculpture Commission, Vitrine Gallery, London; Ideas in the Making: drawing structure, Trinity Contemporary, London; Still now is then Forever, Hanover Project, UCLAN, Preston; Jerwood Drawing Prize; Sex Shop Transition Gallery, London; The Opinion Makers, Enclave Gallery, London; Loss of object and bondage to it, Lubomirov-Easton, London; On Becoming A Gallery, Angus Hughes, London; Playing Against Reason, The Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh; Present, H P Garcia Gallery, NY. Her drawings have been selected for; Works on Paper by Sculptors, Royal Academy of Arts; Jerwood Drawing Prize; ARTfutures; Drawing Room Biennial Fundraiser Exhibition and exhibited nationally and internationally; Measure, Gesture, Form, Portland Art Museum, USA; Modern Times: responding to chaos De La Warr Pavilion, Unknown Fields: Recent British Drawing, Young Gallery, Salisbury; Another Dammed Drawing Show, Frances Richardson, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, LA, LONDON/BERLIN; fruehsorge contemporary drawings, Berlin; Pencil and Paper, Poppy Sebire, London; In Between the Lines, Trinity Contemporary, London; The Postcard is a Public Work of Art, X Marks the Bökship, London. |
REVIEWS
Artnet News:
Young Galleries and Subversive Work Add Edgy Appeal to London Art Fair on Its 30th Anniversary Artists Nilbar Güres and Frances Richardson scoop up awards at the fair. Javier Pes, January 17, 2018 link to online article "Another prize went to the British artist Frances Richardson for her installation that riffs on Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa. A Leeds College of Art contemporary of Damien Hirst, Richardson won the Solo Award, co-founded by the curator and dealer Chiara Williams to realize the work at the London Art Fair. The artist made the birch plywood squares (£700/$965 each) and a sensuous sculpture or “performed object” in concrete canvas (£3,500/$4,830) for the fair in a site-specific installation at Chiara Williams Contemporary Art’s stand.." 
Squaremile:
London Art Fair 2018: the ten artists you have to see FRIDAY 5TH JANUARY 2018 link to online article London Art Fair director Sarah Monk picks out ten of the top artists to check out at this year's show LONDON ART FAIR is one of the capital's premier art events. This year's edition, taking place from 17 - 21 January 2018, is particularly special as it's celebrating its 30th anniversary. The 2018 edition will showcase more than 130 of the world's leading dealers of modern and contemporary art, offering the highest quality artworks from the 20th century to today. Visitors will enjoy a diverse spectrum of work from celebrated artists to innovative new talent showcased through the curated spaces Art Projects and Photo50. We asked the fair's director Sarah Monk to pick ten artists that are not to be missed… FRANCES RICHARDSON | CHIARA WILLIAMS CONTEMPORARY ART Frances Richardson is an artist who is on a roll at the moment, winning the SOLO Award 2017 and the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award 2017. I was on the judging panel for the former prize and I was bowled over by her work. Her new body of work entitled In times of brutal instability draws inspiration from the humble post-it note, with each artwork on display reflecting the fleeting nature and tenuous balance of an art fair. 
LONDON ART FAIR CELEBRATES 30 YEARS AND ATTRACTS INTERNATIONAL COLLECTORS SUPPORTING BOTH ESTABLISHED AND BURGEONING MARKETS
Friday 26 January 2018 "London Art Fair 2018 demonstrated that confidence in the contemporary art market is also high with galleries reporting strong sales across all mediums including painting, photography, prints and applied arts. Venet-Haus Galerie reported a significant number of sales to younger collectors, who acquired the playful, irreverent work of The Connor Brothers and pieces by pioneering street artist Van Ray. Meanwhile Plinth sold out of limited edition works by Louise Bourgeois and Royal Academician Richard Wilson. The appetite for new contemporary voices was also apparent in the Fair’s Art Projects section, with C&C Gallery selling out of their stand of Mona Osman paintings and Chiara Williams Contemporary Art selling components of Frances Richardson’s award-winning installation In times of brutal instability to both curators and collectors." link to online article: https://www.londonartfair.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PRESS-RELEASE-London-Art-Fair-celebrates-30-years-and-attracts-international-collectors.pdf |
Artlyst:
Sue Hubbard Has The Last Word 20 January 2018 Sue Hubbard link to online article "There was a time when the London Art Fair (now in its 30th year) was the glitziest thing in the capital’s art world calendar. That was before Frieze, which sucked up much of the razzmatazz. Now LAF has found its own identity. It is strongest on British Modern Art, as well as having a vibrant project space for newer and more experimental work so that among the good, the bad and the just plain ugly, there are some real gems for the collector... ...But it is in the upstairs Project Space that the real strength of the fair lies. A feature that over the years has grown to showcase some challenging and interesting work. Chiara Williams Contemporary Art is showing In Times of Brutal Instability by the SOLO Award™ winner 2017, Frances Richardson, selected by the fair’s director Sarah Monk, Robin Klassnik, Director of Matt’s Gallery, and Lisa Le Feuvre, Head of Sculpture Studies at the Henry Moore Institute. The fleeting nature of the fair itself is the starting point to Richardson’s work. As a largely site-specific artist, there was no site for her to visit before the fair opened. Working within the constraints of the booth she has attached sheets of incised 1.3 ml birch-ply to the wall. In the corner, a section of carpet has come adrift and in the front of this is a ‘wrestled’ sinuous knot of concrete canvas that looks like a twist of old carpet, which made me think of Joseph Beuys. But it was when she talked to me about Géricault’s Raft of Medusa that the piece made real sense, and the feeling of physical instability began to resonate." 
Artlyst:
Artlyst Chooses Six Of The Best 19 January 2018 link to online article Above, Frances Richardson, In Times of Brutal Instability, Chiara Williams Contemporary Art Artlyst chooses six of the best from the 2018 London Art Fair. The London Art Fair is the capital’s longest running Contemporary and Modern art fair. Now in its 30th year, the event presents leading British and international galleries alongside specially curated spaces, Art Projects and Photo50. The Fair invites collectors and visitors to discover works by renowned artists from the 20th century to today. This year’s fair takes place from 17-21 January 2018, London Art Fair a great first stop to the 2018 international art calendar. 
ARTIST FRANCES RICHARDSON WOWS WITH CONCRETE CANVAS AT LONDON ART FAIR
23 JANUARY 2018 Artist and friend of Concrete Canvas, Frances Richardson, has wowed once again, gaining critical acclaim for her latest designs which were featured at the London Art Fair. The Fair, which ran between 17th-21st January, and celebrated its 30th year as the UK’s 'premier Modern British and contemporary art fair'. This year, Frances, a familiar face to Concrete Canvas, was featured at the Chiara Williams Contemporary Art’s stand, after winning the Solo Award co-founded by Chiara Williams in 2017. Her work, entitled 'In Times of Brutal Instability', has been complemented and featured in articles on various art-focused platforms, and was specifically singled out by seasoned art critic Sue Hubbard. Read her take on the Fair, and Frances' work here. Artnet news also singled out Frances, read more about their take on her work here. Art Projects catalogue text by Pryle Behrman
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