Flotilla
Charlotte Barker

For Edinburgh Art Festival 2017 Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop presents the first major solo exhibition of the work of the artist Charlotte Barker. Opening on the 29th July 2017 this newly commissioned, previously unseen work explores the irregularities of the handmade object.

Charlotte Barker’s work sits at the intersection of sculpture and design. Her exquisitely made objects bridge the gap between functionality and aesthetics to float precariously between states. Produced with traditional methods these works strike an elegant balance between simplicity and complexity, the historical and the contemporary. Their minimal forms are opposed by the intricate traceries of tool marks that form their surfaces exposing their material beauty, their tactile history and their means of production.

This new body of beautifully crafted ceramic sculptures and vessels displayed on painstakingly reproduced replicas of simple, functional 17th century furniture maintains many of the idiomatic elements that are associated with ceramics and furniture exploring their sculptural potential and deconstructing the hierarchical relationships between fine art, craft and the decorative arts.

Bio:

Charlotte Barker is a sculptor working primarily in ceramics. Charlotte is interested in the painterly properties of the ceramic surface and playing with the viewer’s perception of material qualities. She coils and slab-builds her work and enjoys experimenting with the ceramics surface, pouring glaze, breaking work and collaging it back together in the kiln.

Charlotte Barker (b.1986, North Yorkshire) graduated with MA Ceramics from Royal College of Art in 2015 and Glasgow School of Art in 2010. Recent exhibitions include The Pioneers, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Fresh, British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke-on-Trent