Virtual Artefact: The Contemporary Craft Fair

Cynthia Corbett Gallery is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming new contemporary art and design fair Artefact, taking place in the magnificent Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour, from 22 – 29 June 2021 (10am - 6pm).

Artefact is a celebration of contemporary art, craft and design, encouraging visitors to experience the joy that art objects can bring to their lives. This expertly curated fair will present its visitors with a range of unique artworks and objects varying in subject matter, craftsmanship and medium. While London awakens, we look forward to engaging with our UK-based supporters in Chelsea while offering our overseas friends an online Fair experience.

Attracting top designers, architects, collectors, art-lovers and style-seekers, the physical event will feature an impressive rollcall of contemporary visual arts galleries from the vibrant British art and craft scene. Museum-quality pieces on show will come from all over the world, and will include works in unusual materials, including epoxy resin, tapestries and ceramics.

Our curation will comprise artworks by 2019 Young Masters multiple award-winner, ceramicist Albert Montserrat, inaugural 2014 Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize winner, ceramic & textile artist, curator and art historian Matt Smith. We will also feature stunning artworks by Young Masters Guest artist Chris Antemann, who has been artist-in-residence at MEISSEN Porcelain factory since 2010. The curation would not be complete without the colourful, innovative and expressive installations by Gallery artist Klari Reis.

Matt Smith's large scale solo shows have addressed themes including the legacy of colonisation in Losing Venus (Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford) and Flux: Parian Unpacked (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), LGBT visibility in Queering the Museum (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2010) and Other Stories (Leeds University Art Collection, 2012). Matt co-directed and curated Unravelling the National Trust which saw over thirty artists working with contemporary craft, including himself, commissioned to respond to the histories of the National Trust properties Nymans House, Uppark House and The Vyne. He is Professor of Ceramics and Glass at Konstfack University of the Arts, Stockholm and Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester’s School of Museum Studies. His work is held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum as well as numerous private international collections. In 2014 Smith was awarded the inaugural Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize .

Klari Reis uses the tools and techniques of science in her creative process, constantly experimenting with new ways to apply materials and methods. She is driven by curiosity and her desire to explore and document the natural and unnatural with a sense of wonder and joy. Formally trained as an architect, the artist from her base in San Francisco (in proximity to one of the largest concentrations of life science/technology companies in the world) collaborates with local biomedical companies and is inspired by the cutting edge of biological techniques and discoveries.

The unifying theme of Klari Reis’s art is her mastery of a new media plastic, epoxy polymer, and the fine control she brings to its reactions with a variety of dyes and pigments. Her compositions display brightly coloured smears, bumps and blobs atop aluminum and wood panels. A skilled technician with a studio for a laboratory, Reis uses science in the service of her art.

KLARI REIS'S WORK HAS BEEN EXHIBITED WORLDWIDE AND PUBLIC COLLECTIONS INCLUDE MICROSOFT RESEARCH IN CAMBRIDGE, UK; NEXT WORLD CAPITAL’S OFFICES IN SAN FRANCISCO, PARIS, AND BRUSSELS; MEG DIAGNOSTIC CENTRE FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN IN OXFORD, UK; GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN IN LONDON; THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER HOOVER PAVILION IN CALIFORNIA; AND ELAN PHARMACEUTICALS, GENENTECH, ACETELION AND CYTOKINETICS IN SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO.

Chris Antemann is an American artist known for her contemporary parodies of 18th century porcelain figurines. Antemann’s work employs a unity of design and concept to simultaneously examine and parody male and female relationship roles. Characters, themes and incidents build upon each other, effectively forming their own language that speaks about domestic rites, social etiquette, and taboos. Themes from the classics and the romantics are given a contemporary edge; elaborate dinner parties, picnic luncheons and ornamental gardens set the stage for her twisted tales to unfold.

Since 2010 Chris Antemann has been engaged in a residency at MEISSEN® Porcelain Manufactory in Germany. The works she is making at the Meissen Art Campus use the literary technique of a frame narrative, a story within a story, to build relationships and create layers of information between the sculptural aspects and the painted surfaces. The main story is presented in the guise of the 18th century porcelain figurine as a context, which frames a parody or second narrative between the sculpted characters. Other stories and in many cases, the sources of inspiration for the piece are painted into the scene in elaborate detail.

Antemann earned her M.F.A. in ceramics from the University of Minnesota and her B.F.A. in Ceramics & Painting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited extensively in the United States and China. Her work can be found in many private and public collections, including the Museum of Arts and Design, The 21 C. Hotel Museum, The KAMM Teapot Foundation, The Archie Bray Foundation, The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, Portland, Oregon and the Foshan Ceramic Museum in China. Her artist residencies include The Archie Bray Foundation, The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where she was the NEA funded resident. IN 2010 she was the First Place Winner of the Virginia A. Groot Grant, a prestigious grant awarded to artists working in 3D to allow them time to further their work. Since 2011 Chris Antemann has been artist in residence at MEISSEN® Art Campus where she has created her ANTEMANN DREAMS Collection.

Spanish-born Albert Montserrat is totally convinced that ceramics is the most noble, traditional and humanly attached material of all. Also, historically, what this material has allowed us, the humanity, to achieve, in all aspects, from improving our health to a medium of expression, is immense. This makes him feel real veneration and respect to it. He shows a very particular interest for the highly technically demanding oriental glazes from the Old Masters, having inspired him to make an extensive research, giving the strong finish to Montserrat’s work. Glazes are his passion. He is fascinated to see and endlessly test what the chemical elements around us bring to the surface of the vessels that he throws on the wheel. He has a special interest in the traditional vessels that the history of ceramics has brought to us. From the Egyptian canopic jars to the Roman amphoras or the Korean moon jars.

MONTSERRAT HAS BEEN INTENSIVELY AND CONTINUOUSLY MAKING CERAMICS FOR OVER TEN YEARS IN SPAIN, MEXICO AND THE UK. HIS WORK IS HELD IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS IN SPAIN AND THE UK AND IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS IN QATAR, USA, UK, SPAIN, MEXICO, AUSTRALIA, BELGIUM AND FRANCE. HE WON THE BARCELONA’S CERAMICS BIENNIAL IN 2018. MONTSERRAT HOLDS SEVERAL INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED AWARDS: HIGHLY COMMENDED YOUNG MASTERS MAYLIS GRAND CERAMICS PRIZE 2019 AND YOUNG MASTERS LEROUGE KNIGHT ART AWARD 2019.