8 February 2016
Working in sculptural installation, and specifically linking together their use of ceramics, Lauren Gault and Zoë Claire Miller’s ‘he was there when I first smelled the smell, and now he is the smell’ connects, debates and expands both their practices. Conceived as a hybrid between a traditional two-person show and a collaborative installation, the works examine the word ‘terroir’ - a term normally used to describe qualities within a wine such a time, a place, an altitude, an environment, and the term ‘qualia’ - an attempt to define the non-chemical, intrinsic, ineffable essence or experience of objects/materials. These abstract, less tangible qualities are said to be ‘held’ or present within matter, and directly informs the artists’ interests in the capacity for an object to have its own ‘embodied knowledge’. These concepts and terms are examined in directly in relation to the artists sculptural practices for this exhibition.
Gault received her BA in Fine Art (First Class Hons) from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee. Her practice involves working in installation, writing and performance. Solo shows include: lipstick-NASA, Jupiter Artland, Wilkieston, Scotland (2015); fugue states (with Allison Gibbs), Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland (2015); Plosive blows, Hotel Maria Kapel, Hoorn, Netherlands (2015); Y.O.R.B, Atelier Am Eck, Düsseldorf, Germany (2014); Here Bianca!, GENERATORprojects, Dundee, Scotland (2013); Granular and Crumb, Edinburgh Modern Film School, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (2013); Sweet ensilage, Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland (2013); Lacks, the duchy gallery, Glasgow, Scotland (2010). Group shows include read the room, you’ve got to, curated by Quinn Latimer, SALTS, Basel, Switzerland (2014); Portraits, Still Life and Landscapes, Usher Gallery, Lincoln, England (2014); The Burning Sand (Volume 3), Glasgow International 2014, Glasgow, Scotland (2014); When two or more are together, with Lauren Printy Currie in association with Spike Island Associates, Glasgow International 2014, Glasgow, Scotland (2014); Waking up a Shape, The Woodmill Press, Bristol, England (2014); Dear Green, ZK/U, Berlin, Germany (2014); You blink at the plughole, Mexico Project Space Leeds, 2013; My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets, Glasgow Project Room, Glasgow, Scotland (2013); WETODRY, Sierra Metro, Edinburgh, Scotland (2011).
Zoë Claire Miller (b. 1984 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Miller studied Philosophy, Anthropology and Romance languages at the University of Heidelberg, and Fine Arts under John Bock at the Art Academy Karlsruhe, earning her Diploma in Sculpture in 2010. She works as an artist and curator. She cofounded the Berlin Art Prize, an independent award for artists in Berlin, in 2012, and ran the project spaces Galerie Europa and Salon Mutlu 2010-2014. Since 2015 she has been a member of AG Zeit, an initiative working towards improving cultural policy in Berlin. As a sculptor, she mainly works with ceramics, and is particularly concerned with questions of collaboration, objecthood and negative space. She has exhibited internationally, and will be taking part in a residency at Villa Sträuli in Switzerland in 2016. She is a feminist.
www.laurengault.co.uk
www.zoemiller.eu/start
With: Lauren Gault/Zoë Claire Miller