Common Ground

Asha Fontenelle, Flora Hunt, Milktooth, Jhinuk Sarkar, Katherine Smith, & Amy J Wilson
July 17, 2022
 to September 24, 2022
@ Turf, 46-47 Trinity Court, Whitgift Centre, Croydon CR01UQ

Free & open to all

Opening event: Sun 17 Jul, 3-5pm, Free & open to all. Artist-designed cocktails, with BYOB also welcome.

 

A studio members’ take-over of the Turf Projects gallery space in response to project ‘Cultural Field’ by Rosa-Johan Uddoh. Collaboratively curated by six female and non-binary artists; this group exhibition spans sculpture, painting, audio, video and more. The exhibition draws upon themes of race and gender in sport, football within popular culture and access to space present within Rosa’s work.

Much of the work in Common Ground playfully repurposes the aesthetics of football to explore these themes; the pitch and equipment are hijacked to become sculptural objects, team strips become costume, and movements of players are reimagined as scores for performance.

A mini Polly Pocket style toy open on a white tiled shelf. It is cast in jesmonite, with a pale pink exterior and an interior covered with green grass flocking. Either side of the open toy are jesmonite casts of mini football goals, the ground around them has white pitch markings. In the background is a print of a frosted window.

Asha Fontenelle is a Croydon born artist who uses painting, drawing and printmaking as a means of self-determination, exploration and healing.

Flora Hunt works across sculpture, writing and sound to try to access weirdness and create collective, alternate realities. Flora’s work is informed by ideas around gender fluidity, public ownership of space, and the entanglement of magic and science. Recent obsessions include glow-in-the-dark slugs, rhinestones, traffic islands, apocalypse scenarios, and trespassing.

Milktooth imagines colourful dreamy portals of the mind depicted primarily in watercolours, acrylics and colour pencils. Their work is an exploration of childhood experiences in the Caribbean and Britain. Themes of cultural versus individual identity, belonging and freedom are at the heart of the work. Jhinuk Sarkar is an illustrator/educator living in Croydon. Her illustrations aim to make ideas accessible. Celebrating worlds that clash cultures in exciting ways, diversity and representation are key to her work in digital and analogue platforms. She uses ink, text, collage to promote these ideas surrounding inclusivity. Katherine Smith looks at how to connect to her own body, using materials as an interface for connection. She looks at co-creating sensory space with other bodies that prioritises non-verbal language: interconnection through sound, movement, materials. Amy J Wilson works across mediums to engage with our shifting relationship to materiality, representation, reproduction and the boundaries between domestic and public space. Amy recently won the OMNI Artist Award and is currently artist in residence at Cambridge School of Art.

Related events:

We’ll be creating some arty football fun at Turf Projects, working together as a team to make collaborative artworks thinking about shared space, how we can move whilst making art and imagining our very own football team!
Taking place at the end of each month, our free feedback sessions are a chance to get feedback on your work from a practicing artist in a supportive and friendly environment. All kinds of creative work are welcome.
Taking place at the end of each month, our free feedback sessions are a chance to get feedback on your work from a practicing artist in a supportive and friendly environment. All kinds of creative work are welcome.
Join us for a Walking Tour of the Fungus Press billboards, led by project curator Jessie Krish; programmed as part of Wandle Fortnight.

Related Turf artists: