Head On: Nicola Dale

9 May-21 May 2023

PV 11 May 2023, 5-8pm

Overview

Bobinska Brownlee gallery is delighted to present Head On, a performative participatory exhibition of sculptures that invite the viewer in.

Dale writes 'I have come to feel that a sole focus on what sculpture looks like no longer serves the objects I make.'

In Head On, Dale's sculptures may be placed on the head, or hang off it. They may contain more than one occupant. They may be held up, mulled over, turned whichever way up or differently placed.

Each piece combines sight with touch at the locus of encounter.

In Head On, Dale's works are open to completion by the audience. Dale says 'what interests me here are the ways in which sculptural volume can be both implied and mutable. By inhabiting a sculpture, an audience member becomes it, no longer able to see it from a distance. Each becomes the viewed as well as the viewer. Within the collapsed distance, a horizon of touch can be repeatedly established, reached and mediated anew'.

An artist born, living and working in the north of England, Dale has been influenced by the mainly Victorian memorials or war monuments - and occasionally the kind of public project with the sad air of forced fun - to be found there. She says 'I see sculpture drift further and further away from public consciousness. The positive side of this, however, is that there is a space for something else to happen: for me, this calls for work at a human, one-to-one scale. Let each sculpture meet each person head on!’

Perhaps if someone can 'become' sculpture, they can feel closer to art more generally, and perhaps 'objecthood' can be an avenue to other world views and possibilities.

Nicola Dale works with sculpture and performance to explore objecthood. She performs in public galleries and platforms in the UK and abroad, including The Hepworth Wakefield (forthcoming, Mar 22); The Grundy; Backlit; MOSTYN; Turner Contemporary and The Whitworth. She has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions and international residencies. Her work is held in several public collections. She is based in Stockport.

Head On is supported by Arts Council of England funding.

Press

Head On: Exhibition Essay by Cherry Smyth, part I
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Head On: Exhibition Essay by Cherry Smyth, part II
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