We are pleased to present ‘A Cautionary Tale’, Claire Partington’s long-awaited first solo exhibition. Part fairytale, part contemporary social commentary, part art-historical treasure trove, the show brings together a wide collection of her ceramic figures together with a series of plaques and smaller precious works.
Claire Partington is an artist who revels in her historical influences. Golden age Spanish portraiture, 18th century salt glaze bears, Renaissance madonnas and medieval pilgrim badges: Claire dips in and out of each like a magpie, mixing them together with 21st century references to create exquisite ceramic sculptures. A Cranach ‘Venus’ becomes a medieval reliquary version of the board game ‘Operation’; Della Robbia devotional plaques present single mothers in vest tops or bull terriers garlanded with fruits. With striking presence, Claire’s works embody an enthusiasm for aesthetic objects and movements that sweeps across the centuries.
Folklore and fairytales are also an important influence in her work, both for their vivid imagery and also for how their narratives mutate over the years and in different contexts. Some works make direct references, such as that of a Flemish saint holding a silver nutmeg and a golden pear in allusion to the Tudor nursery ryhme. Other sculptures are zoomorphic, much like many fairytale characters: 18th century courtiers change from Goldilocks into a bear or Red Riding Hood into a wolf through the use of interchangeable heads reminiscent of eathenware vessel stoppers. Alongside these are figures that seem to have emerged from an unknown history, characters surrounded by animal friends that could have been drawn from a medieval master’s symbolic lexicon. A dandy with his hart, a matron with her squirrel monkey: these are sculptures in the visual tradition of Holbein or Campin but with a contemporary sense of humour and the surreal.
Underpinning all Claire’s work is a social commentary, particularly about women, and particularly about power. All Claire’s women have attitude: her Sleeping Beauty lies in what could be an Emin bed, her Lilith (a version of Cranach’s Lucretia) brandishes a dagger while guarded by her dog. These are women who use their aesthetic presence to project strength more so than to attract, in contrast to her dandified male figures counterparts who seem beholden to their whimsies. In part, this is a conscious redressing of the gender motifs that have carried on unquestioned for centuries in folklore and aesthetics. But it is also a means of re-evaluating the beautiful object: that beauty is often far more complex and far more mischievous than it may seem.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
_wpfuuid | 1 | This cookie is used by the WPForms WordPress plugin. The cookie is used to allows the paid version of the plugin to connect entries by the same user and is used for some additional features like the Form Abandonment addon. | |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Non Necessary". |
viewed_cookie_policy | 0 | 11 months | The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
CONSENT | 0 | 16 years 10 months 14 days 16 hours 18 minutes | No description |
Advertisement cookies help us provide our visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
IDE | 1 | 1 year 24 days | Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile. |
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | 1 | 5 months 27 days | This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website. |
Analytics cookies help us understand how our visitors interact with the website. It helps us understand the number of visitors, where the visitors are coming from, and the pages they navigate. The cookies collect this data and are reported anonymously.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
YSC | 1 | session | This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos. |
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
Cookie | Type | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|---|
test_cookie | 0 | 11 months | This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the users' browser supports cookies. |