LONDON.- The ICA presents the first UK solo presentation of works by Betty Woodman (born 1930), one of the most important contemporary artists working with ceramics today. The exhibition focuses on work Woodman has created in the last ten years, including a number of major new mixed media pieces.

Betty Woodman began making work in 1950 with clay as her chosen medium, and throughout her practice has constantly explored new directions and introduced new techniques and media. Woodman's conceptual boldness and her ambitious experimentation – in which she combines such unlikely materials as lacquer paint on earthenware and terra sigillata, a slip glaze often used on ancient ceramics, on paper – have generated a unique series of innovations. Significantly the ways in which she combines ceramics and painting in her three-dimensional works, resonates with younger generations of artists.

All her work relates to her ceramics, their decorative design, imagery and unusual use of various media, and can be seen as a way of exploring her painterly sensibility. For many years she has focused on the vase, which over time has become her most salient subject. For Woodman, the vase can be a vessel, a human body, and animal figure, a metaphor, or an art-historical reference. Painting, particularly in recent years, plays a key role in the work of Betty Woodman. Her later works are large, colourful drawings and paintings on handmade paper or canvas that combine graphite, ink and lacquer with terra sigillata and wax. Her work alludes to and blends numerous sources, including Minoan and Egyptian art, Greek and Etruscan sculpture, Tang Dynasty works, majolica and Sèvres porcelain, Italian Baroque architecture, and the paintings of Bonnard, Picasso and Matisse.

The ICA exhibition follows her first solo museum show in Italy, at the Museo Marino Marini in Florence which is the artist’s second home and where she has been living and working for six months of every year for over fifty years. Although each exhibition will have a bespoke selection of works, they will both focus on her recent production, especially works made after 2006, the year of her major retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, while taking stock of her continued relevance to contemporary art and her importance among post-World War II artists.

The ICA will present a vibrant public programme of talks and events to coincide with the exhibition. Betty Woodman has been commissioned to make a new work for the Liverpool Biennale, opening in July 2016.

Curated by Vincenzo de Bellis with the ICA.

Over the course of her lengthy career, Betty Woodman (b. 1930, Norwalk, Connecticut, USA) has had numerous solo exhibitions at museums and galleries internationally as well as been included in frequent group exhibitions. Since her retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, “The Art of Betty Woodman,” in 2006, these include: “Betty Woodman,” Museo Marino Marini, Florence, 2015; “BIACI - 1st Bienial Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo Cartagena de Indias, Colombia,” Cartagena, 2014; “Alessandro’s Rooms,” Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, 2013; “Playing House,” Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, 2012; “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990,” Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2011; “Roman Fresco/Pleasures and Places,” American Academy in Rome, Rome, 2010; “L’allegra vitalità delle porcellane,” Museo Delle Porcellane, Palazzo Pitti, Giardino di Boboli, Florence, 2009; and many more. Her work is included in more than fifty public collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Musée des Arts Decoratifs Paris, France; Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; National Museum Wales, Cardiff, Wales, UK; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York. Woodman currently lives and works in New York City and Antella, Italy. Forthcoming Salon94 will present a solo booth of Woodman’s work from the 1980s at Frieze Masters this October and the artist has been invited to participate in the Liverpool Biennial in summer 2016.