Claude Heath has rightly been recognised as one of the most outstanding artists of his generation, bringing to his work a lively intelligence and a radical sense of experimentation. Heath's work treats sensation and its transcription into visual form as separate processes. He employ such unconventional strategies as a blindfold to make tactile drawings.
Kettle's Yard is delighted to announce the appointment of Claude Heath as
Kettle's Yard and Christ's College Artist Fellow 2002-2003.
Claude Heath has rightly been recognised as one of the most outstanding
artists of his generation, bringing to his work a lively intelligence and a
radical sense of experimentation.
Employing such unconventional strategies as a blindfold to make tactile
drawings that use a combination of massed contour line and abbreviation
marks to describe an object, or drawing upon surfaces hidden from view,
Heath's work treats sensation and its transcription into visual form as
separate processes. These experiments in drawing often serve as starting
points for larger scale works, including paintings and wall-drawings, whose
size offers new interpretations of the imagery. Such imagery may include
the life-mask of his brother, Toby, a leaping Tiger and Prey, the Venus of
Willendorf, a wave, peeling oranges, Epstein's hand, and an Ivory Coast
mask.
The exhibition at Kettle's Yard will be the most comprehensive to date,
bringing together older work as well as newer work, including that which
has developed as a result of his residency and exhibition at the Centre For
Drawing, Wimbledon School of Art, at the end of 2001. In these works, Heath
drew a variety of plants from four different sides, sometimes
simultaneously, and on surfaces that were out of sight, but not out of
mind. Of these, he has written, "Working from plants now, it will be
interesting to see whether it is possible to set them down just as they
are,...as if rendered by a three-dimensional computer programme that has
taken a holiday from mathematics." In recent work Heath has been able to
suggest three-dimensional space by grafting pairs of these related vegetal
images onto each other.
Claude Heath (b.1964) lives in London. He studied philosophy and has
rapidly gained recognition for his paintings and drawings through group
exhibitions such as Young British Artists VI, The Saatchi Gallery, London
(1996), Antechamber, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1997) Blueprint, De
Appel Foundation, Amsterdam (1997), The Jerwood Painting Prize, Jerwood
Gallery (1998), Art In Sacred Spaces, Christchurch, London, Mapping the
Process, Essor Gallery, London (2002).
Claude Heath was a prizewinner in the 1997 John Moores Exhibition. He was
the first artist-in-residence at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, and this
led to a publication and solo show in the Study Galleries, Leeds City Art
Gallery (1999). He is now increasingly exhibiting in the USA, with a solo
show at Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York in 2001. His work is included in
several major British art collections.
The artist is represented by Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York.
There will be a private view in te company of the artist on 28 September
from 6pm.
For more information and examples of Claude Heath's work:
http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artists/ClaudeHeath/bio.htm
Kettle's Yard, Castle Street, Cambridge CB3 0AQ
tel +44 (0)1223 352124