PAD London: Art Fair

 

A major work will be a new triptych tapestry from Teresa Hastings, a three-dimensional textured expanse of wool - knotted, woven and twirled with hammered iron - in natural-dyed tones of dusky black, soft mink, smoky browns and glowing embers. Woven by hand over many months, this new work from the artist is a meditation on iron and its uses, histories, meaning and value. The fibres are laboriously dyed with a concoction of rusted iron and Myrobalan plum, stewed together in a delicate balance and then dried in the Himalayan sun. As Teresa splits her practice between India and the UK, her tapestries tell a story of the connections between different places and people, interwoven with the histories of iron and textiles. 

 

Peter Marigold’s Bleed series encourages chemical reactions between zinc-stripped steel and tannins-rich Cedar to form emotive furniture-objects. The cabinets talk of change and the weathering of time - simple linear forms adorned with a contrasting painterly surface patina, an intricate bleeding pattern through the wood. We will also show a new table from Domingos Totora. His certified sustainable practice, based in his native Brazil, recycles cardboard and uses earth pigments to create bold objects which embody a kind of organic brutalism. Arko similarly subverts the lifecycle of our global waste products, stitching rice straw to create vibrant yet delicate objects.

 

We will also show a collection of crackled porcelain sculptures from Luke Fuller which will harmonise with the tectonic cluster of ceramic and volcanic rock totems from Aneta Regel. Gareth Neal will produce a unique cabinet crafted from commercial industry waste and off-cuts of Khaya. The piece is a contemporary rewriting of the possibilities of fine veneer furniture, celebrating the imperfections and irregularities of the re-purposed timber. We will show objects from Eleanor Lakelin, Nic Webb, Mayumi Onagi, Ernst Gamperl, Marc Ricourt and Katrien Doms. Adi Toch will provide a mounted installation of her weathered recycled White Bronze mirrors; engaging and enigmatic, they invite the viewer to lean in to become part of the object, and are defined by this participation. These will rest alongside the wall-based pyrographic work of Etsuko Ichikawa, Mulberry paper compositions from Alida Kuzemczak-Sayer and geomorphic arrangements of bog-aged Oak by Wycliffe Stutchbury. We will show furniture of fine veneers and bronze from Marc Fish and a freestanding ebonised linenfold cabinet from Christopher Kurtz. 

 

For the first time we will also present the work of Full Grown, who are perhaps best described as botanical craftsmen. They employ ancient techniques to grow their tree-chairs, manipulating a bough’s directions of growth through custom frames and grafting together new sculpture-chairs in the living tree. They integrate the artistic and romantic into the scientific, and urge us to reconsider the way we produce our everyday objects. These grown sculptures are semi-functional, beautiful objets d’art.

 

Chamber, essentially, will showcase the beauty and versatility of natural, accessible, and sustainable materials; highlighting makers who redefine and reinvigorate traditional techniques, play with liminal materiality, and seduce with tactility.