exhibition

Eva Rothschild

13.Sep.07 - 04.Nov.07
Tue-Sun 12-6 Closed Mon

South London Gallery
65 Peckham Rd
London SE5 8UH
020 7703 6120
mail@southlondongallery.org
www.southlondongallery.org
Tube Oval; Bus 36, 436, South London

In a group of new sculptures and wall-based works made especially for her South London Gallery show, Rothschild continues to explore and extend her practice. These new works function independently, yet together create a coherent entity, the relationships between each piece having been as central to their evolution as the process of making. Rothschild’s on-going enquiry into the relationship between drawing and sculpture, between two and three dimensions, is introduced by several spindly, four-legged stands supporting painted wooden cubes, leather plaited triangles and beaded snake-like coils. Interspersed with these are sculptures in different scales and forms, some purely abstract and others with obvious figurative sources, rupturing any sense of continuity from one work to the next.

A lumpen black boulder has an unexpectedly shiny surface, fractured and reflective, while wall-based works of woven paper use vivid colour, meshing together fluorescent images on black backgrounds to psychedelic effect. These and other works, such as totemic cylindrical stands supporting head-like forms, play on our tendency to imbue objects with meaning and power beyond their mere existence, prompted by the knowledge and beliefs we bring to them. Hints of spiritualism, mysticism and the aesthetics of New Ageism, as well as ideas around craft and its various associations, are clearly present in this show, but with a subtlety that ensures Rothschild’s concern with the nature of sculpture is never overshadowed.