Hannah Rickards
To enable me to fix my attention on any one of these symbols I was to imagine that I was looking at the colours as I might see them on a moving picture screen.
15 February–21 April 2014
Preview: 14 February, 6:30pm
Modern Art Oxford
30 Pembroke Street
Oxford OX1 1BP
Modern Art Oxford brings together for the first time an exhibition of key works by British artist Hannah Rickards. This interwoven configuration of works occupies all of the first-floor galleries and includes a new piece, Like sand disappearing or something. (2013).
Rickards’ meticulously researched and executed works explore the elusive landscape of perception, language and translation. Her attention is particularly drawn to atmospheric phenomena such as thunder, mirage, and the aurora borealis. Rickards closely examines these occurrences—and how we experience them—through moving image, audio, text and installation works.
Exploring Rickards’ practice as a set of works in a growing landscape, the exhibition’s dynamic structure reflects the artist’s observations on the interconnectivity of perception, the fluidity of vision, hearing, language and self.
Rickards says, “Everything within this exhibition is to do with an uncertainty in language and how we might try to articulate a relationship to something beyond us in the world: musically, verbally, gesturally.”
Underpinning the exhibition are the artist’s scrupulous and investigative methodologies which involve the detailed deconstruction of her chosen subjects. Breaking down the auditory, visual or spatial relationships into minute parts for individual examination, Rickards’ intense artistic gaze scrutinises each particle before reconstruction through language, gesture or, as in the case of Thunder, musical transcription and performance.
The exhibition explores the interrelationship of a set of works that start with Thunder (2005) and conclude with Like sand disappearing or something. The works included in the exhibition, each produced over a period of years, are framed by a concern with the elastic uncertainty of collective description, articulated often through the use of musical structures.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a monograph examining Rickards’ complex practice, with an introduction by Paul Hobson, texts by Sally Shaw, Isla Leaver-Yap and a dialogue between Hannah Rickards and Adam Chodzko.
Artist talk: Hannah Rickards in conversation with artist Geoffrey Farmer
Saturday 15 February, 1pm
Live performance of the score of Thunder and launch of Hannah Rickards’ monograph
Thursday 13 March, 6:30pm, Edward Boyle Auditorium, St Hilda’s College
Biography
Hannah Rickards lives and works in London. Educated at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, her recent solo exhibitions include Artspeak, Vancouver (2010); Whitechapel Gallery (2009); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, (2009); and The Showroom, London (2007). In 2005 Rickards was commissioned by Media Art, Bath.
Rickards’ work has featured in recent group exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (2013); S1 Artspace, Sheffield (2013); Kayne Griffin Corcoran, Los Angeles (2013); Murray Guy, New York (2011); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2009); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2009); ICA, London (2008); Johann Koenig, Berlin (2007); and Witte de With, Rotterdam (2006).
Rickards was recipient of the second edition of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery. In September 2014 she will have a solo exhibition at the Fogo Island Gallery, Newfoundland, Canada.
Exhibition and monograph supported by Collezione Maramotti, Italy.
Modern Art Oxford is supported by Arts Council England and Oxford City Council.
For further information and images please contact Hannah Evans, Communications Manager, Modern Art Oxford at hannah.evans [at] modernartoxford.org.uk / T +44 (0) 1865 813 826 / M +44 (0) 7817 268 998
