At The Art Show 2022, GAVLAK presents a two-person exhibition with artists Judie Bamber and Ruth Duckworth. Together their work explores the flow of form through a feminine lens. Bamber’s small object paintings, shown with Duckworth’s intimate sculptural forms, pull the viewers into their works. The presentation of their work together highlights the direct intent and nature both artists draw upon, a sharp look into minimalism.
German-born artist Ruth Duckworth moved to England during the rise of Nazi power. She pioneered her own path in ceramics, also exploring bronze and stone. Her sculptural forms are bold and decisive, drawing from nature for inspiration carrying an organic rhythm. The breadth and diversity of her work is significant, spanning from ceramic murals to intimate abstract sculptures. Duckworth’s consistent answer to making allowed her to arise as a prolific artist. Her command over clay, bronze, and stone delivered flowing abstract and figurative forms, holding a distinct individuality to her work. Breaking past the traditional functional objects of ceramics, Duckworth created a successful mesh of ceramics and design. Her clean, crisp minimalist forms revealed her precise eye for composition in sculpture. Her cup and blade series promotes design while still respecting the material. Made from white, unglazed porcelain Duckworth shows the delicate nature of the clay while forming a relational narrative between two objects, the blade and the cup. The interaction of the objects can be seen as the blade slicing into the cup or the cup swallowing the blade, stabilizing the translucent porcelain blade. Duckworth carries her compositional sense of narrative to her figures. Minimal close forms emerge fluid female bodies through smooth curves and sway, with determined poses that catch a moment in time. Cast in bronze, ‘Untitled’ 2004 has a broad base curving in and out to reveal the female form with marked by an abstract face. Looking straight ahead, the circular face is defined with an indented line running down the middle which contrasts the wave of the body. There is movement, as the curves hold tension; not clear which direction they will go. Duckworth evolves a narrative between the push and pulls of the geometric and organic making of the figure. Distinct figures true to her compositional movements and objects.
Judie Bamber is a Los Angeles-based artist whose paintings, watercolors, and graphite drawings attempt to give voice to female pleasure and experience, while grappling with her family history. In a suite of paintings from the late 1980s, Judie Bamber painted hyperreal portraits of tiny objects that are confrontational antimoments of intimacy. She captures distinctly human objects, whether a fleshy oyster, a chromed egg butt plug with a leather thong, or a bruise on pale skin. The objects have a feminine leaning that lies in their use or connotations of the object’s actions. The centrality of the compositions in her work leaves the objects floating on a vast monochrome canvas with muted colors, rich in textures like an LP record. Though hyper-realistic paintings, the small scale of the portraits creates a spatial abstraction. Bamber’s paintings demand the viewers to physically move closer to see and interact with the work. The titles of these paintings create a contentious dialogue, taking on sarcastically pointed titles like ‘I’ll Give You Something To Cry About‘ depicting a dead baby finch laid in a pale grey canvas. Bamber creates a conversation mixed with cynicism and humor. Bamber’s work has visual command of observation, emotions, and form. Judie Bamber created delicate, captivating, and challenging paintings that cut into violence, femininity, and consumerism.
This presentation continues GAVLAK’s commitment to women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ artists.