Tate St Ives

The ceramics studio has always been a place where tradition meets experimentation. Spanning 100 years, this exhibition explores the diverse forms, energies and locations that define the modern studio. Ranging from the rise of studio pottery in the 1910s to a number of new commissions by a young generation of UK-based artists, That Continuous Thing – a quote from the American artist Peter Voulkos – traces the changing shape of the ceramics studio over the last century.

Opening with exchange between Japan and the UK in the 1910s and ’20s through the emergence of studio potters such as Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada (who moved from Japan to St Ives in 1920), William Staite Murray and Dora Billington, the exhibition leads on to the Californian ‘clay revolution’ of the 1950s and ‘60s, with sculptures by the pioneering sculptor Voulkos and his students, including Ken Price, Rudy Autio and Ron Nagle. A specially commissioned series of ceramic sculptures by the young British artist Jesse Wine will be included in response to the display. The final section of the exhibition, developed with artist Aaron Angell, recalls artists working in London in the ‘70s and 80s, celebrating the experimental work of Gillian Lowndes, Richard Slee and other ‘hand-building’ contemporaries. These will be shown alongside a presentation of works by a number artists – including Anthea Hamilton – made over the last three years at Angell’s London-based Troy Town Art Pottery, which he describes as ‘a radical and psychedelic workshop for artists’.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/continuous-thing-artists-and-ceramics-studio-1920-today

Jessica Warboys will fill the sea-facing galleries at Tate St Ives with specially commissioned work, alongside films, sculptures and large-scale paintings. Her work is informed by personal or collective memories – historical, mythical or fictional – and this solo show will consider her use of symbolism, form and her approach to landscape.

Warboys often employs natural elements in making her works. The exhibition will feature specially commissioned Sea Paintings, which will immerse the galleries overlooking Porthmeor Beach, in floor-to-ceiling colour. Made on the Zennor coast, near St Ives, these enormous unframed canvases have pigment applied directly on them before being submerged in the waves. They are a physical document of Warboys’ collaboration with the sea, but will provide a backdrop to several new sculptures in the lower gallery. An installation of objects that reoccur across Warboys’ practice in film, performance and exhibitions, will be designed for the showcase. New forms and paintings will be also included in this one-off playful installation.

A suite of films made in the UK, will be presented in the final room: Pageant Roll 2012, made in the ancient landscape of the Cornish moors; Boudica 2014, which explores both the historic character and her namesake, the Boudicca Way in Norfolk; and a new film, Hill of Dreams 2015, which has been specially commissioned by Tate St Ives, Casa Masaccio San Giovanni Valdarno, Italy and Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway. It draws from Welsh fantasy writer Arthur Machen’s book of the same name, a semi-autobiographical novel written in 1907 that relives his childhood memories of a rural Gwent, where Warboys too was born a century later. The films highlight her enduring interest in landscape, pagan history and often overlooked historical figures.

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/jessica-warboys

Discover the hand painted transformation of our stairwell by artist France-Lise McGurn

Invited through the Tate St Ives Artists’ Programme, Glasgow based artist France-Lise McGurn has painted the stairwell at Tate St Ives. McGurn’s paintings and drawings grow out of her personal archive of collected imagery found in film, art, advertising and television. Often working directly onto walls and floors, McGurn is also interested in the history of mural painting, from the domestic murals of Bloomsbury and her own mother, artist Rita McGurn, to the swinging ‘Christy Girls’ of American artist Howard Chandler Christy.

McGurn used her residency at Tate St Ives to think about the function of gossip, anecdotes, parties and the stories that circulate in an artists’ colony. As she says about the stairwell: ‘it is as though there could have been a party here’. However, while all of her characters cavort and intermingle, each fragment of her painting references a different story or myth, from various histories and tales.

McGurn also associates the form of the stairwell to that of an actual well, suggesting bodies of water, reflective surfaces, and the fluidity and leakage of gossip. The colours in her palette quote both rust and moss, substances that are cultivated by waterlogged environments and which leave a stain or mark on a surface. Created to be read vertically, rather than horizontally, McGurn’s mural uses both spontaneous lines and repeated gestures to create loose associations about place, history and storytelling, almost as though we are peeling back the layers of a past.

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-st-ives/display/collapsing-new-people-france-lise-mcgurn

To coincide with the exhibition That Continuous Thing: Artists and the Ceramics Studio, 1920 – Today, St Ives based artist Simon Bayliss will show some of his recent ceramic work in the café at Tate St Ives.

Simon Bayliss uses the traditional technique of slip-painting to decorate his ‘pasties’ with vivid colours and playful designs that reference historic studio pottery, the artistic legacy of St Ives, along with queer culture and identity. The idea to crimp the edges of these ceramic objects like a Cornish pasty came ‘as an epiphany’ to Simon, reflecting his playful engagement with the context in which he lives and works.

Simon Bayliss’s Ceramic Pasty Paintings will be on display in the café at Tate St Ives throughout our summer season 2017.

Website

http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-st-ives/display/ceramic-pasty-paintings

This event takes place every Friday until 2 September 2017 , In this series of films we look at the themes from the current exhibition, The Studio and The Sea, including a focus on the sea and nature as inspiration and the pleasure of working with clay. All exhibition visitors are welcome to take a seat and enjoy this selection of documentary and artists’ film. Friday 28 April, Senara Wilson Hodges will introduce her documentary film on Warren MacKenzie, an important figure in American studio pottery who worked with Bernard Leach from 1949-52. This documentary film was filmed on his return to the Leach Pottery in 2013.

Suitable for

• Any age

Admission

Free with gallery admission

I spy with my little eye….Discover the answers to picture clues at Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum. Find them all to win a prize.

Suitable for

• Family friendly

Admission

Free with gallery admission

Every Wednesday in August. Sessions take place at 10.30–12.00 and 14.00–15.30. Explore the beach, get inspired and create your own artwork in these fun, hands on workshops. Suitable for ages 5-12. All children must be accompanied by a responsible adult. Please note: sessions will be cancelled in very wet weather.Advance booking essential, book tickets here.

Suitable for

• Especially for children

Admission

£4.50

Join us for a beautiful live musical event and experience the unique environment of the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden before the town wakes up. In association with St Ives September Festival, Ticket price includes refreshments and a joint ticket to the Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture garden and Tate St Ives. Advance booking essential - book here.

Suitable for

• Any age

Admission

£15. Concessions available