Olivia Bax: Handrailing

14 Sep-10 Nov 2024

Overview

“I consider the inside space as much as the outside. There are often windows and holes to offer different vistas and depths.” - Olivia Bax

The New Art Centre at Roche Court Sculpture Park is delighted to announce Olivia Bax: Handrailing, a solo exhibition in conjunction with Sid Motion Gallery opening on Saturday 14th September, 2024.

In this new series, Olivia Bax explores the relationship between material and form in response to the New Art Centre’s gallery space. It is an apt setting for her ongoing interest in the linear and the solid, the interior and the exterior.

Her sculpture is unexpected in every way, from its playful compositions to its unconventional materials – paper pulp, chicken wire, household paint. Welding metal armatures and assembling protruding limbs, she pushes us to consider different perspectives. The title of the exhibition is indicative of the exploratory process behind her work; ‘Handrailing’ is a term used in rock climbing or orienteering to move through or along a space. This resonates with Bax in her process of making and taking a work from one stage to the next.

While working as a studio assistant to Anthony Caro in her early twenties, Caro encouraged Bax: “Stop making sculpture, create a world”. Subsequently, her practice evolved into a vehicle for enquiry, questioning the world around her and creating alternative realities. Bax enjoys subverting and poking fun at sculpture’s ‘rules’. Adopting lightweight, waste materials as her media, her work challenges the traditional assumption that sculpture should be heavy and made from expensive materials.

Based in London, Olivia Bax gained a BA in Fine Art from Byam Shaw School of Art, London (2007-2010), before completing her MFA in Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in 2014-16. She is the recipient of The Mark Tanner Sculpture Award (2019/20) and Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize (2016). She has recently exhibited at Holtermann Fine Art, London (2024); BoLee and Workman, Bruton (2024); Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre (2023-24); Southbank Centre, London (2023); Hatch, Paris (2023) and Lustwarande, Platform for Contemporary Sculpture, Tilburg (2023). Bax’s work was acquired by the 2020-21 UK Arts Council Collection, and is also in the Ingram Collection and Tremenheere Sculpture Park.