07/03/2014

Charlotte Hodes - The Grammar of Ornament in Design Week

By Emily Gosling

Back in 1856, architect Owen Jones outlined his Thirty Seven Propositions – a series of ideas that set out to stop what he saw to be the tendency at the time to ‘copy’ images, without any comprehension of what made them beautiful.

His writings went on to have a significant impact on British design in the latter half of the 19th century, and now Charlotte Hodes is casting her eye over them, reinterpreting the ideas as a 21st century woman.

Hodes, Dean of the London College of Fashion, works in collage and papercut, as well as designs for ceramics, aiming to ‘dismantle’ the form of decorative arts.

Her work is to be exhibited in a new show called The Grammar of Ornament – the title of another of Jones’s publications – opening this week at London’s Jaggedart gallery.

Her papercut works use the image of a female figure, looking to subvert the male viewpoint of Jones’s writings. Her feminist ideas are pushed further in the decision to use traditionally ‘feminine’ objects, such as ceramic dishes and tableware, as a canvas - bringing the idea of domesticity and the home to the fore.
Her work, using tiny fragments of paper and decorative motifs, explores the diverse manner in which the women have been presented in art history; the decorative links to the domestic, and the way in which so much of female activity goes unnoticed’, says Dr Janet McKenzie, in her catalogue essay on the work in the exhibition.

Charlotte Hodes, The Grammar of Ornament, runs from 6 March – 5 April atJaggedart, 28 Devonshire St, London W1G