LONDON.- Pangolin London is presenting highly-respected sculptor Ann Christopher’s latest solo show ‘If you stop asking questions - - - ’
Aptly titled the exhibition explores the nature of making and what drives an artist to continue. The exhibition comprises a new body of sculpture inspired by Christopher’s peripatetic wanderings around the world where she collects all sorts of natural and man-made objects that catch her eye and may at some point spark a thought or shape that could lead to a sculpture or drawing.
For this exhibition found stones collected over many years have inspired a new series of works that first began in Uganda. Elegantly pairing a beautiful found object with a shape created by Christopher to bring it to life, these remarkable works are at once intimately personal yet universally timeless. They all bear Christopher’s signature elegance, powerful grace and combine sumptuous organic surfaces, often worked directly by hand in the metal, with sharp, dynamic forms.
Christopher’s two-dimensional work is also highly sculptural. Using multiple layers of paper or semi-translucent film, pinched together and suspended in the frame with stationery clips, series ‘Following Lines’ first came to fruition on the West Coast of Ireland whilst Christopher was on a residency there. The wide open horizons cut through with telephone lines inspired the first drawings which whilst abstract, preserve something of the landscape within them and have developed to include carefully placed flashes of colour, precision-drawn lines and texture.
Memory, ancient artefacts and contemporary architecture inspire Christopher to create instinctive sculptures that are less about working through a predetermined series of formal decisions than a more organic, aesthetic process which endeavours to retain an element of mystery - an abstract ‘presence’ without being directly descriptive. In a poem commissioned specifically for this exhibition, writer Kelly Grovier describes Christopher as ‘The Seeker’ - an artist who is committed to catching the ephemeral whilst communicating the timeless and, as the exhibition title suggests, is always asking questions.
In 1980, at only 32 years old, Ann Christopher was one of the youngest sculptors elected to the Royal Academy. Having exhibited extensively since the late 1960s, she has become renowned for a timeless yet contemporary style that articulates both great strength and delicate sensitivity. Most rececently Christopher was commissioned by the Royal Academy to create an impressive sculpture ‘Following Journey’ for the Keepers House, and earlier this year Christopher had a highly successful solo exhibition in New York as well as exhibiting a selection of works at the well known Michelin restaurant Maison Bras in Laguiole, France.
