Like a Sieve at Kupfer / London

Like a Sieve
Madeleine Pledge, Nathaniel Faulkner, Alexei Alexander Izmaylov, James Jessiman, Evie Ward, Jude Crilly. Curated by Ted Targett

July 25 – August 5

Kupfer
27A Ponsford St 
London, UK

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition overview

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition overview

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition overview

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition view

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition overview

Like a Sieve @ Kupfer. Exhibition view

Alexei Alexander Izmaylov  @ Kupfer. CHARM HOOKS MK3, 2019. Laser cut & powder coated steel, stainless steel safety screws.
Evie Ward @ Kupfer. Sitting with, 2020
James Jessiman @ Kupfer. Found, Taken, 2020. Plaster polymer, barley hay, walnut, white oak.

Alexei Alexander Izmaylov  @ Kupfer.

Left: Bright steel, laser cut and powder coated mild steel, UV inkjet print, PVC, laser cut and heat shaped Perspex, laser cut greyboard, spray paint, acrylic paint, acrylic medium, laser print on recycled paper, cast silicone, cable ties, cloth tape, climbing rope, liquid rope whip, heat shrink, MAC lipstick (LADY DANGER, TROPIC TONIC, RUSSIAN RED), felt pads, cotton thread, aluminium & stainless steel hardware.


Right: SIDECAR, 2020
Foam, lacquered plywood, acrylic medium, spray paint, climbing rope, heat shrink, plastic pallet strapping, laser transparency print, aluminium & stainless steel hardware.
Nathaniel Faulkner @ Kupfer. Field, 2020. Steel, Jesmonite, paint
Madeleine Pledge @ Kupfer.

Bottom: Be Soft But Not Too Soft (Slouched)
unfired flax fibre clay with terracotta body (hand modelled).

Top: Balaclava (op), 2019
Inverted ‘op’ balaclava after Rosemarie Trockel; design translated from images and knitted by Sarah Shepherd (two shown from an edition of 10). Machine knitted donegal lambswool hand dyed with natural hair dye (ebony black) and squid ink, undyed donegal lambswool (natural chalk).
Jude Crilly @ Kupfter. tulpa host, 2020. Blue ash wood (fraxinus quadrangulata), woad flower wood stain, hickory wood, wax, hand-woven aluminium chain, ceramic, asteroid fragment, lasercut plexiglass, UV vinyl prints, powder-coated aluminium, powder-coated steel.

Jude Crilly @ Kupfter. tulpa host, 2020. Blue ash wood (fraxinus quadrangulata), woad flower wood stain, hickory wood, wax, hand-woven aluminium chain, ceramic, asteroid fragment, lasercut plexiglass, UV vinyl prints, powder-coated aluminium, powder-coated steel.

Jude Crilly @ Kupfter. tulpa host, 2020. Blue ash wood (fraxinus quadrangulata), woad flower wood stain, hickory wood, wax, hand-woven aluminium chain, ceramic, asteroid fragment, lasercut plexiglass, UV vinyl prints, powder-coated aluminium, powder-coated steel.

Jude Crilly @ Kupfter.bon pied bon œil, 2020. Oregon pine (pseudotsuga menziesii), malva flower wood stain, hand-woven aluminium chain, lasercut plexiglass, lasercut corian, UV vinyl prints, powder-coated aluminium.
Jude Crilly @ Kupfter.bon pied bon œil, 2020. Oregon pine (pseudotsuga menziesii), malva flower wood stain, hand-woven aluminium chain, lasercut plexiglass, lasercut corian, UV vinyl prints, powder-coated aluminium.
Exhibition view

All images courtesy of the artists and Kupfer.

We are, these days, extremely proficient in expressing our preferences. Do you like it? Social media is fixated on keeping count of our approvals, and, such is the ubiquity of the thumbs-up, it is hard to not seek the same level of endorsement in non-digital life. 
Observing is a fundamental activity. We look at what’s around with ‘eyes like a hawk’ scouring for familiarities and similarities, not disappointments and satisfaction, and asking ourselves ‘
To find a simile is to make a connection, and to make a connection is to reveal something. On reading and hearing similes our minds work to delve deeper, and even the most banal occurrences are rendered surprising and more lucid from irregular comparisons. At the beginning of T.S. Eliot’s poem

‘Like A Sieve’ – with its allusion to half-forgotten memories – is an exhibition of collage, sculpture, simulacra, pastiche. And, of course, similes.
Jude Crilly (b. Ontario, Canada), lives and works between London and Amsterdam. She completed an artist residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam (2018– 2020). Exhibitions include Maison Populaire, Montreuil (2020); Whitstable Biennale, UK; Lítost Gallery, Prague; RijksOPEN, Amsterdam; Proyectos Medellin, Mexico City (2018), Galerie Nadine Feront, Brussels; Stroom Den Haag, NL; Filet Gallery, London (2017); puntWG, Amsterdam; Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania; Horse Hospital, London; RYDER Projects, London; Catlin Contemporary Art Prize, London (2016); Transformation Marathon, Serpentine Gallery, London; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle; Camden Art Centre, London (2015). Jude Crilly graduated from Royal College of Art, London (2015), and the Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (2010).
Madeleine Pledge (b. 1993, UK) lives and works in London. Exhibitions include Stretch, Flatland Projects, Hastings (solo exhibition, 2019), Spread, Arcade Campfa, Cardiff; travelling to The Horse Hospital, London, and Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend, Essex (touring group exhibition, 2019–2020), The Weather Garden, Anne Hardy curates The Arts Council Collection, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne (group exhibition, 2019), Die Wohnung, SET Project Space, London (two person exhibition with Eva Gold, 2018), and Portrait (for a screenplay) of Beth Harmon, Tenderpixel, London (group exhibition curated by Sean Edwards and Tamsin Clark, 2017).

Evie Ward (b. London, 1993) is a poet and writer. Her poetry has been published most recently in Art Licks, SALT and Cesura//Acceso. Her writing on art and music has been published in The Wire Magazine and thisistomorrow. Collaborations include The Creaking Breeze Ensemble (with Paul Abbott, Ute Kanngiesser, Billy Steiger, Seymour Wright and Nathaniel Mackey), Cerebellum (with Zara Miller) and a project about weaving with words and cello (with Ute Kanngiesser). She has conducted extensive research on the overlooked visionary textiles artist Moki Cherry and continues to work with her archive.

James Jessiman (b. 1990, Yorkshire, UK) lives and works in London. Exhibitions and projects include LS GOMMA 072, Pavillion Pavillion, Glasgow, (2019) Artworks Open 2019, ArtWorks Project Space, London, Visions of the Unseen, Kings College London (2019), Sinkhole Project presented by Ginny, London (2018), 30DAYFREETRIAL, SET London (2018), Jolene’s Unit (Curated), Pickering UK (2018), Mantel, C Ø P P E R F I E L D (2018), and ずれた Zureta, University of the Arts, Tokyo (2017)
Alexei Alexander Izmaylov (b. 1985, Voronezh, Russia) lives and works in London. Exhibitions include Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London (2019), Bloomberg New Contemporaries, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2019),  PLACID & LIMPID: 3AM MIRACLE , A FRAGMENT, Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg (2018), Forårsudstilling, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017). 

Nathaniel Faulkner (b. 1995, Wiltshire, UK) lives and works in London. Exhibitions include ‘Exceptional’, The Collyer Bristow Graduate Art Award, Collyer Bristow, Holborn, London (2019), ‘showerthoughts’, San Mei Gallery, London (2019), ‘Italian. For Beginners, artsdepot,  Apthorp Gallery, London (2019), Commixture, The Koppel Project Hive, London (2019), ‘arc’ curated by Kristian Day, Herrick Gallery, London (2018), ‘Tempting Fake’, Noble Studios, London (2017),  ‘Mutants’, Burlington Camden, London (2017), ‘Demo Day’, Kunstraum LLC, Brooklyn, New York (2017).