Many Leaves Turn
by Jo Ball
Saturday 19th October – Saturday 9th November 2024
Private view: Friday 18th October 6-8pm
Open: Wednesdays to Saturdays, 12-5pm
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‘Many leaves turn’ presents new work by Jo Ball. The floor and wall-based pieces are informed by ideas of fragility and resilience, made from materials gathered from the artist’s allotment, home and the city she lives in. Everyday stuff such as string, paper, mud and sticks are used to create forms that refer to holding and containment and their opposites - letting go or overflowing.
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The process of making is key and hands are a recurrent motif. Slip cast in terracotta, the artists own hands are displayed on low platforms. Made of unfired terracotta they look as if they are wilting under pressure, they are deliberately taken out of the moulds early and so cannot hold their shape. The platforms are made from breeze block forms cast in a mixture of paper, mud and clay. Large hand-knotted nets fall loosely from the ceiling, changing colour as they descend gracefully to touch the floor. On the surrounding walls hang large pieces of linen dyed with buddleia. Considered by many people an invasive weed, this adaptable plant grows alongside roads, trains tracks and industrial estates, finding a way to thrive in the most unlikely of places.
Practising a kind of domestic foraging; the artist saves paper from the recycling to be shredded and turned into mud-blocks, prunings from the allotment that would otherwise go into the compost heap. In fact, the idea of composting is a useful way to think about her approach. Objects thought of as waste or surplus are kept and taken to the studio, where they sit alongside other things, sometimes for years. Though a slow unfolding something else emerges, something new and nourishing.
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Towards the tail-end of the pandemic, Jo was invited to take part in a book club to read ‘All we can Save’, a 2020 collection of essays and poetry highlighting a range of women's voices in the environmental movement. This experience led to a deeper thinking about how as an artist, she could speak towards the climate crisis and the emotional impact it has on us.
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“My making processes are often slow and repetitive. Peeling bark from willow branches in long ribbons revealing the moist apple green wood underneath, looping and knotting string countless times to form a net, collecting and shredding paper then soaking, blending it with clay and soil before finally casting it into blocks. These actions soothe my mind and provide an important counterpoint to the rush of everyday life. I offer the work to the audience with the intention of evoking wonder and curiosity, while also drawing subtle attention to feelings of overwhelm and anxiety. In truth I make art because it helps to keep me sane. Because it keeps alive a belief in the possibility of a different way of doing things.”
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Jo Ball is an artist based in Bristol. She completed an MFA at Concordia University in Montreal where she was the recipient of a Commonwealth Scholarship. She has participated in residencies including the Atlantic Centre for the Arts, Florida and exhibited across North America and the UK. Her work is held in private collections and the Banff Centre for Art, Canada. In 2021 she was awarded funding from the Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice grants programme to create new work.
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