Martin Smith, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London

Martin Smith 
Barrett Marsden Gallery, London
11 March - 23 April 2005

Martin Smith shows a new series of ceramic works investigating properties of space through varying accents of colour, shadow and reflected light. This is a development of his ‘Oscillate’ series and continues a line of artistic inquiry that began with ‘Wavelength’, a site specific installation made for Tate St Ives in 2001. Each work is composed of two elliptical or circular units, derived from sections of cones and cylinders and fabricated from an open textured red brick clay. They sit on discs of coloured glass whose hue is amplified or deeply muted in reflective inner surfaces of platinum leaf. Dependent on the spacing of the clay units, sometimes open, sometimes tight, one area can seem brightly lit and another in deep shadow. As a result of alternative colour and light responses the viewer gains very different perceptions of the inner spaces of the pieces. Due to their apparent stability and weightiness, the clay forms bring a sense of materiality and inertia. But in his deft use of colour to articulate light and space Martin Smith also conjures up a curiously contrasting sense of the ephemeral.

MARTIN SMITH is widely regarded as one of the UK’s most innovative ceramic artists. He has exhibited internationally and was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Boijmans Van Beunigen Museum, Rotterdam in 1996. His work is represented in numerous public collections including: Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Stedlijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He was awarded a Chair as Professor of Ceramics and Glass, Royal College of Art, London in 1999.

BARRETT MARSDEN GALLERY
17-18 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DN
www.bmgallery.co.uk