Olivia Bax is a sculptor who brings things together, creating ensembles of found and made objects, held together by metal armatures, chicken wire, cardboard and paper pulp. Her handling of these materials runs with and departs from established sculptural processes, simultaneously constructing, welding and modelling, and using the metal armature both as an inner supporting structure and as an active component of the final sculpture itself, pushing through and out of the modelled paper pulp. As well as construct and model, Bax also paints, but rather than being applied at the end, her paint is mixed into the pulp from the very start. This means that she works with colour both as a painter and as a sculptor might, modelling colour as one might clay.

Bax has a preference for conduit forms, such as pipes, funnels, tubes, chutes and hoppers, that suggest ideas of passage and transferral while carrying directional energies with them. She also uses forms of containment such as pockets, socks, sacks, sachets, cup and vessel that suggest temporary and tentative ways of holding and enclosing things. Hooks, handles, holding devices and other tool and prop-like objects are also deployed, enabling her to link one thing to another, suggesting relationship and connection, while highlighting difference through juxtaposition. Her sculptural set-pieces read as nesting structures, curious habitats and modes of habitation, personal spatial-material orbits coordinated by techniques of the body, such as sitting, reaching, leaning, kicking, holding, resting and pulling.

-        Jon Wood, extracted from ‘Home Range’ exhibition text, Holtermann Fine Art, London, 2022

OliviaBax (b. 1988, Singapore) lives and works in London. She studied BA Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (2007-2010) and MFA Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art, London (2014-2016). 

Recent solo exhibitions include:Home Range,Holtermann Fine Art, London (2022);Spill,L21, Mallorca (2022);Off Grid,Mark Tanner Sculpture Award Exhibition, Standpoint Gallery London (2020) toured to Cross Lane Projects, Kendal (2020/21) and Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens (2021);pah-d'bah, HS Projects, London (2021) andChute, Ribot Gallery, Milan (2019/20). Recent group exhibitions include:Material Impressions: Artists & Paper, Larsen Warner, Stockholm (2022-23);Reflections: Part 3: Sculpture by Women Artists, Workplace, London (2022);Flock,BoLee and Workman, Somerset, UK (2022);Weeds Won’t Wither, Jari Lager Gallery, Cologne (2022);On the Other Hand, with Brooke Benington at Canary Wharf, London (2021) andGleaners:OliviaBax & HannahHughes, Sid Motion Gallery, London (2020/21). 

Prizes include: The Mark Tanner Sculpture Award (2019/20); Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize (2016), Additional Award, Exeter Contemporary Open, Exeter Phoenix (2017) and Public Choice Winner, Saatchi Gallery, London (2015). Bax’s work is part of private and public collections including: The Arts Council, The Ingram Collection and Tremenheere Sculpture Park.

Born in Colombia to an Italian family of agronomists and architects, Daniel Brusatin grew up very close to nature and was exposed from a very young age to the arts and design. He trained in The Academy of Fine Art in Florence with an emphasis in sculpture. His love for materials and production techniques took him to Milano to a second degree in design and applied arts. During his studies and at his arrival in London Brusatin worked for Brian Clarke where his love for stained glass, Ceramics and architectural art found mentorship.Always with a strong artistic practice his studio has moved from Florence and Milan to Paris and since 2013 is based in London.

Even though Daniel Brusatin’ work comprises diverse artistic disciplines: Sculpture, drawing, ceramics, stained glass and architecture; he has always kept painting as the central axis of his practice. it is throughout the relationship and conversation between these mediums that his work starts to shape up. Exploring visual language through semiotics, art history, traditional techniques and the act of making, Brusatin attempts to blur the arbitrary lines dividing the arts and encourages questions of fundamental phenomena as the relationship between the perpetual forces of nature and the hand of the artist, the curious case of ‘accidentality’ in a chaotically organized world and the role art plays in civilisation. 

Formally and Conceptually his work anchors the contemporary world in tradition, art history and the psychology of engagement creating a dialectic between materials and artistic expressions that serve as a catalyst to this visual poetry; based upon the idea that “beauty is not a characteristic linked to any particular thing but a state of understanding” Brusatin looks for common denominators, triggers, and expressions of primal relatability. Subjects often treated in his work are the relationship between abstract and figurative art, the conception of the work and the creation of an image in an era of careless mass-production and the importance of the artistic experience; the present and emotional engagement between the work and the viewer. 

Turning the subject matter into art itself this lines are dissolved and their effect multiplied. For Brusatin to define is to limit and a practice in constant revision and experimentation becomes the only path to evolve the artistic language

KOMOREBI DB.pdf

Arthur Cohen’s practice encompasses weaving, performance and scenography.
 He defines his work as ‘an ecosystem sculpted by the entanglement of research into fiction, somewhere between theatre, wearable and visual art. 

Throughout his weavings, Arthur explores the relationship between staticity
 and movement, where the shapes and rhythms of the works become a sort of choreography of matter that collaborate, attract or repel each other.
 The works often display contrasted elements such as natural fibers like linen, or cotton, mixed with man made matter such as aluminium or copper wire creating a fortuitous encounter between traditional technique and manufactured products. 

The interest in movement not only translates Cohens’s exploration of the ‘in-between’ space that lies within contemporary identities’ formation, but also stands up for his performative work. The design of weaved garments and elements of scenography becomes a way to activate the textile craft, unveiling the hybrid profile of the artist himself. From weaving tapestries to designing garments and stages, and from auto- ethnographic research to fiction; Cohen’s practice exists with a perpetual sense of movement and mutability. 

Through connecting ancestral technique to contemporary perspectives and projecting his craft in-between spheres of creation, Cohen offers us an insight into a place where materials, techniques and cultures form a hybrid experience. 

Fitzherbert’s work is made from hung, heavily layered, fragile paper, combing the alchemy of pigments, metals and salts. They explore concepts including destruction, erosion, and imperfection. 

Through rigorous tactile and alchemical processes, Fitzherbert forces her work to undergo transformation, flux, and decay in the search for healing and solace.
Her mixed-media works incorporate papers salvaged from demolition sites or torn from graffitied walls, combined with pigments, inks, dyes and metals and found objects. 

For Fitzherbert the process of creation is paramount. She stresses the importance of the rituals surrounding traditional crafts techniques, fusing deliberateness and purpose with the unexpected chemistry of her painting process. The resulting layered surfaces reference life’s transience and the melancholic beauty of the ageing process. 

Bleached Sepia and Burnt Sienna Tones, 2021 

Watery Ultramarine with Warm Umber, 2021 

Strong Cracked Cobalt with Moss Green, 2021 

Soft Falling Peach Tones with Yellow 2021 

Guy Haddon Grant's monochromatic sculptures and drawings lie at the boundary between abstraction and figuration.

Haddon Grant (1986), born in London, started his studies in Camberwell College of Art before moving to Florence, Italy for two years to study the renaissance masters and their techniques. He works in charcoal, candle soot, wax, plaster, steel and wood; creating enigmatic works with a narrative that informs one another.

Haddon Grant has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions notably the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the ICA and the Liverpool Biennial. He has also exhibited at the British Figure at Flowers Gallery and has held two solo shows Apophenia at the Royal College of Art and Dust and Shadows at Karavil Contemporary.

Nicky Hodge lives and works in London. She has exhibited her paintings, drawings and multimedia works widely over the past 25 years. In 2021, Horse Gossip, a solo show, opened at Bobinska Brownlee in London. In the same year, she was selected for several group exhibitions including Notes for a landscape at Kingsgate Project Space and A Tiny Bit of Fire curated by Warbling Collective.  In 2022 she exhibited with Gwenyth Fugard and Dom Gray in Something Tender at Yorkton Workshops in May and Wundertüte, a two person show with the German abstract artist Michael Kaul, opened at Hart’s Lane Gallery in August. In the same year, her collection of ten paintings, Nighttime words leak out, was presented online by Richeldis Fine Art. In 2023 she has a work selected for the group exhibition Champs Noir at Terrace Gallery. Slip Road, a solo show with Francis Gallery in Bath, took place this year May – July 2023.

Malice and Ice Cream 2023 Acrylic and Linen on Panel

Clapton Sands 2023 Acrylic and Linen on Panel

The memory must not go lost. The withdrawal of a tradition creates silence, erasure and unconsciously claims a wound. A community needs to be recreated, and not only through the removal of ruins. Debris and traces question the future -to come, a survival possibility. 

The work of Arturo Ianniello (1982, Teggiano, Salerno) is a transcendent reflection,
 a material and conceptual analysis about the effects of human interference on time and space. Every sculptural or installative composition made by the artist exceeds any presence as presence to itself. Not an icon, not idol, not simulacrum, but spectrum. The haunted presence of the past as a physical archive interrupts the idea of a history and introduces an anachronistic segment, a sort of traumatic symptoms to be healed. At the same time this haunted materiality is proved as impossible to be inscribed into the present. Not past, not present, a sort of still to come. 

“Cantico” is the title of a series of Ianniello’s works. By addressing the word from the Latin tradition “cantare” that means to sing, they present themselves as a poetical composition or a song, to be performed in celebration of an entity, according to the religious or civil tradition of “cantica”. In this case, the entity is an invisible creature, documented by the material. 

The social dynamic, - after land dispossession crisis of the mechanical industrialisation and new power regimes, comes in surface through material ghosts and their flesh. Through the use of materials extrapolated from shared imaginaries of the past, a mechanism of dejà vu is triggered, as with repetition with which we try to cross, to capture the spectral aura of things. 

The “sculptures” are an attempt to present a contemplative and resilient song hymn. The original material used by Ianniello and taken from abandoned rural buildings
 or pieces of industrial archeology, demonstrates the mutation and reincarnation
 of the materials in new species. The geological, the natural, the existential and the interhuman are all taken into account and assembled in a poetical manner. 

By following the tradition of the Arte Povera and using the language of a local landscape, Ianniello reflects on the possibilities of global ghosts and what they whisper to us: to build up together the legacy for the future. 

HÄNSEL + GRETEL RIUNION 2020 Acrylic on Canvas

Yuki Nara (1989) was born in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. He is the eleventh generation of the Ohi lineage, a respected and well known family of potters specialized in tea ceramics, which dates back to more than 350 years ago. His grandfather, Ohi Chozaemon X, is distinguished with the honor of National Living Treasure, and his father, Ohi Chozaemon XI, with the Order of Cultural Merit from the Emperor of Japan.

Having witnessed the construction of Kanazawa’s 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art when he was younger, he became passionate about architecture and, as the eldest son of the head family, decided not to initially follow in his father’s footsteps. He majored in architecture at the Tokyo Academy of Arts in 2018, and soon after renewing his passion for ceramics, he enrolled in the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center.  

Nara uses modeling softwares to design each piece which is then sculpted, assembled and fired following his family’s ancestral methods. His series, which he calls “Boneflowers” are contemporary and innovative in their approach, and they stand at the crossroads of architecture and ceramics, balancing tradition and innovation in technology. 

“My aim was to create light and transparent ceramics rather than conventional dignified ceramics, able to absorb its surroundings and retain the special mood of its place, able to be a warm boundary, gently connecting rather than separating, interior and exterior”. Extraordinarily talented and innovative, Yuki Nara has been subject to much attention in Japan and abroad, having exhibited in fairs such as ArtParis, TEFAF, or Design Miami. His works are now in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Nezu Museum in Tokyo. 

"When I think of things, I always think about “boundaries” around them. In other words, searching for the space in “between”. Architecture and Ceramics, Digital and Analog, Inside and Outside, Artifical and Nature, Chaos and Order Hence, it is not something you can clearly differentiate, like 0 and 1 in digital code, like black and white. Rather, an infinity of degrees actually exist between 0 and 1, and an infinite grading of shades exist between black and white. A boundary is not a simple line. Something we could describe as a “fuzzy boundary” can also exist. Once I stop to separate everything by one line, looking through this perspective; arises many silently hidden places. Wondering through the center of the infinite, suffering and struggling - I strive to look for my own place. This open minded adventure much like my own life, is incredibly enjoyable". 


Biography
1989 Born in Kanazawa

Education

2017 Tokyo University of Arts (Architecture), MA 2016 Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center, Diploma
2013 Tokyo University of Arts (Architecture), BA

Exhibitions

2021 Nisoproject, London
2020 Aki Nagasawa Gallery, Tokyo 
2019 Art Central, HongKong; Asia Contemporary Art Show, Hongkong
2018 Art Taipei (Taipei, Taiwan)
2018 Asia Contemporary Art Show (Hongkong)
2018 Les Promesses du Feu (Paris, France)
2017 ASIA NOW (Paris, France)
2017 Design Miami / Art Basel (Basel, Switzerland)
2017 TEFAF Maastricht (Maastricht, Netherlands)
2017 COLLECT (London, UK)
2016 SOFA (Chicago, USA)

Design

2013 Rokkakudo Pudding cup (Collaboration with Asadaya)
2015 Beer Tumbler ‘Kizuna‘ (Collaboration with Nikko)

Architecture

2018 5 elements tearoom (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
2018 Shoji Tea Room (Tainan Art Museum, Taiwan)
2020 Node (Kanazawa, Ishikawa)

Collection
Nezu Museum (Tokyo, Japan)

2018 
5 elements tearoom (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa)
Shoji Tea Room (Tainan Art Museum, Taiwan)

My work explores themes of human embodiment; seeing the body as Itself and seeing the body as Other, through the physical act of painting. More specifically, I am interested in the times we encounter our body Itself as the Other. Moments where we become abruptly and inescapably aware of how our physical self is not something we possess or control but rather something we inhabit. 

Bruising, bloating, blushing; sagging, swelling, stretching.
 The burning pinks and pulsing blues, sallow greens and fading greys. 

In becoming aware of our physical misgivings and limitations, we establish our position in the world and what we can make of it. The canvas edge serves as a metaphor for these contingencies. Figures devoid of any discernible identity or gender, squeeze into the boundaries of the picture plain, ultimately dictated by and succumbing to their existence. 

By allowing the work to evolve through the unpredictable nature or mark-making, these beings exist on a sliding scale of figuration and abstraction. What appears as a result is neither friend nor foe. Like catching a glimpse of yourself in the bath taps, they straddle the line between the familiar and the absurd; the joyous and the grotesque. Teetering on the edge of plausibility. 

Nothing Is As Good As They Say It is, 2023 

NISOPROJECT

NISOPROJECT

INVITED
ARTISTS

Olivia Bax

Olivia Bax

Daniel Brusatin

Daniel Brusatin

Arthur Cohen

Arthur Cohen

Purdey Fitzherbert

Purdey Fitzherbert

Guy Haddon Grant

Guy Haddon Grant

Nicky Hodge

Nicky Hodge

Henry Hoffman

Henry Hoffman

Arturo Ianniello

Arturo Ianniello

Michael Kaul

Michael Kaul

Yuki Nara

Yuki Nara

Lucy Whitehead

Lucy Whitehead

NISOPROJECT

NISOPROJECT

INVITED ARTISTS

Olivia Bax

Olivia Bax

Daniel Brusatin

Daniel Brusatin

Arthur Cohen

Arthur Cohen

Purdey Fitzherbert

Purdey Fitzherbert

Guy Haddon Grant

Guy Haddon Grant

Nicky Hodge

Nicky Hodge

Henry Hoffman

Henry Hoffman

Arturo Ianniello

Arturo Ianniello

Michael Kaul

Michael Kaul

Yuki Nara

Yuki Nara

Lucy Whitehead

Lucy Whitehead

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INVITED
ARTISTS

contact@
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