Dressed in Pattern will be shown across two galleries in Marylebone - three minutes away from each other. It is the inaugural collaboration between Circus, a boutique management consultancy, and jaggedart.
Dressed in Pattern brings together new ceramics and paintings by Charlotte Hodes created over the last two years. These artworks are the outcome of research made at the ceramic Spode Museum Trust archive of copper engravings in Stoke-on-Trent. Motifs and patterns found on the original engravings were printed, scanned, deconstructed and redrawn to shape the graphic language for Hodes’ new images. Her signature women, presented in the form of silhouettes, are dressed in pattern and form part of the landscapes through which they meander.
This new work confirms Hodes’s position as one of the most innovative figurative female artists working in the UK and demonstrates, how within the tradition of painting, she continues to push boundaries both in terms of media as well as in exploring the female condition.
With a touch of humour, lightness and freshness, Hodes’s figures move comfortably across dishes, canvases, prints and paper. Hodes appropriates every media with confidence. Her narrative is unique, regardless of the support that she chooses to use. For the first time, dishes become an integral part of the paintings, blurring boundaries between materials and her intricate patterned backgrounds.
These new artworks, on exhibition at jaggedart London, form part of an overall body of work which includes the installation Spode Trees & Dressed Silhouettes, commissioned for the British Ceramic Biennial in 2015, supported by an Arts Council England research and development grant, the Spode Museum Trust and London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. This exhibition will also include the publication of In the shadows, a related series of limited edition relief prints created and printed at Oficina Bartolomeu Dos Santos (OBS) Tavira, Portugal.
Elements of the installation, Spode Trees & Dressed Silhouettes, will inhabit Circus from 19-23 April. Silhouettes linger across ceramic dishes on a patterned textile, alongside a new large scale painting.
Dressed in Pattern is the second solo exhibition by Charlotte Hodes at jaggedart and builds upon her prize winning work on paper for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2006, her solo exhibition at The Wallace Collection 2007 and her participation in Glasstress: White Light White Heat exhibitions at both the Venice Biennial 2013 and The Wallace Collection 2013.
Charlotte Hodes lives and works in London. She studied Fine Art as an undergraduate student (1978–82) and Painting as a postgraduate student (1982–84) at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. At the Slade School under the Professorship of Lawrence Gowing, she was a student of Paula Rego, Stanley Jones and John Hoyland. Charlotte was Associate Artist at the Wallace Collection, London from 2005-2007 and Winner of the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2006. She is Professor in Fine Art at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Charlotte Hodes has exhibited with jaggedart since 2007.