LONDON.- Gasworks presents C I T H R A, the first solo exhibition in London by Lauren Gault, a Glasgow-based artist born in Belfast. Through her experimentation with unorthodox materials, techniques and manufacturing processes, Gault's work explores the transitions between different states of matter and non-human time scales, while also addressing the ethical and political implications of our everyday interactions with the environment.
In her sculptures, materials as diverse as polished horn, blown glass, pumped air, light, water or agricultural milk powder are transformed by processes involving pressure, tension and release. Her work evokes intangible encounters between radically different materialities and opens up a space for objects to communicate and resonate with one another.
Following her residency at Gasworks, which took place between April and June 2019, the artist continues her empirical research and studio-based experiments concerning material suspension and boundary dissolution. As a point of departure for her new body of work, Gault is researching on the writings of Irish-born female explorer, visionary inventor and self-educated scientist Martha Craig (born 1866), including the unpublished manuscripts and rare editions of her lectures on scientific questions such as teleportation and the aurora borealis.
A distant relative of the artist, Martha Craig’s long-forgotten science-fiction novel, The Men of Mars (anonymously published in 1907 under a mysterious pen name, ‘Mithra’), as well as her pioneering ideas about physics will form the basis for Gault's exhibition, C I T H R A —its title an allusion to the early Zoroastrian word for 'seed', 'species', 'livestock' or 'prototype'.
Lauren Gault's exhibition is commissioned and produced by Gasworks. She is the fourth artist to take part in the Freelands Gasworks Partnership, a programme for emerging artists based outside of London. Made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Freelands Foundation, the programme combines a three-month residency with a solo exhibition at Gasworks. The previous participants were Jamie Crewe, Rachal Bradley and Libita Clayton.
Lauren Gault's exhibition will later travel to The Tetley in Leeds.
Lauren Gault is a Glasgow-based artist born in Belfast. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee. Recent solo exhibitions include: The Workbench, Milan; Grand Union, Birmingham (both 2019); CCA Derry~Londonderry (2018); Prairie Underground, Seattle (2017); Rinomina, Paris (2016). Her work has been featured at Glasgow International (with Sarah Rose, 2018); ØY Festival, Papa Westray, Orkney; Baltic 39, Newcastle (all 2017); Glasgow International (2016); Frutta, Rome; Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh; CCA Glasgow (all 2015); SALTS, Basel (2014).
