ANNIE ATTRIDGE
Petradora

25 APRIL – 25 MAY
Private View: Thursday 24 April, 6-9pm


NETTIE HORN is pleased to present Petradora, a solo exhibition by British artist Annie Attridge; featuring a new series of sculptural porcelain works, drawings and etchings.

Working mainly with porcelain, Attridge produces small scale, delicately crafted figurative scenes and objects that are expressionistic and often overtly sexual. The sculptures recall abstract figures and forms set in a mythological landscape, frozen in this seductive and lustrous material. The scenes depicted are classical in theme and recall 17th century crafted miniatures and notions of the ready-made.

Since graduating from the Royal Academy Schools in 2002, Attridge’s practice has focused on exploring female sexuality through the use of different materials such as household materials, jesmonite and more recently porcelain. Abstracting the female form, Attridge explores ideas of seduction, sensuality and beauty, mixing contemporary context and traditional materials with an air of mischievous fruitiness.

Attridge’s objects of desire are intimate yet playful, and are displayed as islands of individual curiosity - each taking on a diaristic approach. The ornamental and seductive qualities of porcelain and its intrinsic potential to be modelled, stretched, shaped, carved and decorated with coloured glazes lend the sculptures a pictorial quality. Using an amalgamation of references and symbols, female figures seep and morph into each other, entangled in commitment and struggling for freedom; dripping breast desserts, dying flowers and hearts sweep across alien landscapes; legs emerge from oozing puddles, and trees loom over billowing mounds of curves.

Attridge’s drawings are sculptural in their process, using charcoal directly onto high-grade cartridge paper, the rough spontaneous marks and sweeping movements evoke a vitality which becomes more gestural and flowing. The black and white excess of the drawings and their monumental quality explore a world full of joie de vivre and their juxtaposition with the sculptures result in an ambivalent environment where both mediums become fluid and existent subjects and consequently continue to seduce us and draw our attention.

Installation View, Petradora