StudioXAG Team Profiles: Meet Emily

LIKES:
Vegan restaurants, poodles, reading, brunch

DISLIKES:
Being cold, football, sweet with savoury

Emily, what’s inspired you recently?

I recently visited the Hayward Gallery in Southbank for their exhibition, Where Forms Come Alive. Split over two floors, 21 artists have produced sculptures inspired by fluidity and growth, most with some sort of link to the biological.

Following themes of change and transformation, the sculptures range from the floaty to the bold, each with movement either literally or implied. The pieces play with interesting forms and textures, creating a sort of synaesthesia as your experience becomes quite tactile.

Read on to discover some of my highlights…

This was the show-stopper of the exhibition for me. Inspired by molecular structures, it gave me the impression it was expanding within the space, the light dancing off the disco ball-like curls of material as you walk around the sculpture.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed to see the installation had been created from thousands of reflective discs made from a non-recycled plastic sheet material called Mylar instead of a more sustainable alternative.

The Tunnel Boring Machine trio of sculptures caught my attention with their bold and colourful juxtaposition of the industrial and organic materials. Described as ‘limbs,’ the fins – quite propeller-like – protrude from clay bases representing the underground.

I really enjoyed how these large sculptures formed an equilibrium with the heavy and brutal combined with the natural and more delicate, almost balletic poses.

Entering this space, you are enveloped in a multisensory experience. Fàbregas’ inflated installation features an intestine-like sculpture that weaves around the space, leaving just a small walkway around the edges of the room.

I was particularly struck by how the space creates such a physical connection as the bass-heavy soundtrack and the biological form of the sculpture combine and vibrate at a frequency you can feel.

Floating up and down, these flower-like shapes were centre stage on entering the exhibition. Using innovative technology, the flowers furl and unfurl in response to changes in the light or environment.

These delicate dancers speak to the rhythms in our everyday natural environment, such as the flight patterns of birds or the formation of a mass of clouds – the magic in the unexplained.