Paintings and sculptures by Marie Lund, Rallou Panagiotou and Mary Ramsden, are to be exhibited in a new exhibition titled, Vanilla and Concrete. The works explore everyday objects, spaces and gestures. From the finger-smudges on a touchscreen to the sun-bleached fabric of a curtain, these artists give new form and status to apparently trivial materials and incidental moments. Based on memory and intimate observations of the contemporary world, the works draw out connections between surface and essence, and between individual and cultural identity.
Art Now is an ongoing series of free exhibitions at Tate Britain focusing on new and recent work by emerging artists. The series has recently included the group exhibition The Weight of Data and Ruth Ewan and Astrid Johnston’s ongoing sound project, The Darks.
Marie Lund (b.1976, Copenhagen) investigates the actual or notional traces we leave in the spaces we occupy, bringing to the forefront the materiality of daily, overlooked encounters. From concrete casts of rucksacks to repurposed curtains, she explores the familiar from new perspectives and attempts to reshape the everyday. She lives and works in London.
Rallou Panagiotou (b.1978, Athens) is drawn to commodities and situations relating to leisure or luxury, whether it be make up, jewellery or items such as a cocktail straw. Her sculptures, often in marble, show how she sees these symbols of value and desire as artificial enhancements of the human body. Indicating choices rather than necessities, they become the ultimate signifiers of the cultural context that defines one’s sense of self. She lives and works in Glasgow and Athens.
Mary Ramsden (b.1984, North Yorkshire) makes paintings that allude to the accidental smudges and ‘painterly’ marks left after using the touch-screen of a mobile phone or tablet. Exploring how painting may operate within today’s digital framework, she highlights our sense of the visual world through the slippery surface of the technological lens. The paintings are displayed in clusters similar to windows opened simultaneously on a computer screen. She lives and works in London.
Art Now: Vanilla and Concrete 9 November 2015 – 19 June 2016 Tate Britain