Descripción de la Exposición
Square Art Projects is pleased to present From the Base Going Upwards, an online exhibition of recent work by Elena Gileva. This is the first solo exhibition of Gileva with Square Art Projects.
Coiling is one of the most traditional, elemental ways of creating pottery. Lengths of clay are coiled around a clay base by hand, smoothed down, and then fired. It is employed throughout the world, a global practice that appeared independently, stretching back 10,000 years to the Neolithic era. There is absolutely no technology involved other than the maker’s hands and a source of heat. And it is this elemental, essentialist approach that is at the heart of Elena Gileva’s ceramic work for her solo exhibition From the Base Going Upwards.
The title of the exhibition relates to the process of building up each individual work from its base, each piece a different variation of coiling, layered and intertwined in different nuances. Some draw attention to their coils, whereas others have been worked and smoothed over to create a ‘complete’ object. This sense of exploration with the material is continued in the use of glazes: almost every piece has received three or four different layers of glaze before being refired, building up a depth of patina.
The selection of work for the exhibition includes pieces from two artistic residencies that Gileva attended in China and Japan to study traditional pottery methods, a line of enquiry which she still continues. The way that she twists and braids the clay hints at another timeless, ancestral practice in her work: that of weaving. Gileva’s work embodies the age-old interaction between the maker and the object, and to a certain extent, between the distant past and the present.
From the Base Going Upwards opens online on 18th May, and will run until 16th June.
Exposición. 17 nov de 2024 - 18 ene de 2025 / The Ryder - Madrid / Madrid, España
Formación. 23 nov de 2024 - 29 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) / Madrid, España
