A Curious Context: Sculpture by Clare Mitten and Stephanie Quayle
Lobby, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London 5th July � 3rd September 2010
The sculptures of Clare Mitten and Stephanie Quayle resonate with the notion that they are in some way awkward, out of time, or out of place. Their apparently rough and ready nature somehow qualifies this view. The artists themselves are unused to working in the corporate environment and the challenge for them has been to address that formality while maintaining their own hard-won individuality and purpose in their art. One may reasonably ask: �What are these things doing here?� and �Why?� Works of art can divert, amuse, delight, puzzle and extend our thinking; in their enormous variety they indicate a wealth of diversity within the sphere of artists� intentions. In this exhibition, what may appear to be quickly made, even haphazardly constructed, is not accidental.
Mitten and Quayle both gained Masters Degrees four and three years ago respectively at the Royal College of Art, giving them a firm base from which to embark on careers as artists. Their work appears to be disparate. On the one hand are Mitten�s constructions, made from recycled and dated office materials depicting items of bygone technology; and on the other hand are Quayle�s rapidly formed, but undeniably expressive, animals.
Mitten�s obsolete technological kit has, through her interpretation, become an object of curiosity, whereas Quayle�s animals are made to adapt to new locations � urban foxes co-exist with us in our cities, the orang-utan is ousted from his rainforest and an unkindness of ravens crowd together mysteriously. However, there are threads that bind the work of these two artists � both create scenarios where things are at odds with their context. Both work rapidly with the aim that their sculptures should be fresh, not overworked; both express joy in the hand-made.
Known for her scattered installations that flip between painting, collage and sculpture, Clare Mitten has made an interesting journey in her new work for Canary Wharf as she addressed the proper constraints of the Lobby of One Canada Square. Being used to the freedoms of the studio and the art gallery, she has been forced to think about her work differently, and to balance her integrity as an artist with the demands of placing her art in the context of the business world. Her solution was to use materials familiar to her � card and paper, glue and string � and processes of cutting and sticking, but to confine her models and their associated accoutrements within the formality of a number of Perspex-covered pedestals that speak for �museum� showcases. Alongside the clunky model of a mobile phone, the curious laptop, and crazy Chip and Pin device are a series of photographic prints taken from collages depicting the structures laid out as patterns in two dimensions. The forms of these patterns looked extraordinarily close to Aztec designs � slightly geometric, otherworldly. Liking this connection, Mitten chose to link her work directly with the ancient Mexican civilisation � the telephone became Aztech_Tablet, the laptop Aztech_Toppal, the Chip and Pin Aztech_Speedracer, the back-up device Aztech_Backup. Her �take� on making these connections is curious, amusing, but with an underlying sense of stuff that is out in the cosmos, as some Southern American cultures are thought to have been aware. It is no accident that Mitten�s earlier work was based on the forms of sputniks, satellites and cosmic debris, and her work remains a low-tech version of a high-tech world.
In an interview with Annabel Fenn for [^]LAND, an online arts magazine, October/November 2009, Clare Mitten was asked if she could give a tasty tit-bit of information about her future exhibition at Canary Wharf. Her reply immediately brought together environment and objects: �1980s-style pink and green marbling, papier- m�ch� marble/planets, marble madness, marble mazes, roller coasters and scaffolding structures, mobile phones, retro game-boys and gaming design . . . are all things I�m thinking about while making component parts�. Not everything has emerged, but the principles remain firm.
Excerpt from Exhibition Essay by Ann Elliott, 2010
