Taking Care of the Yolk
Harriet Bowman
Harriet Bowman presents a new solo exhibition of sculpture and sound.
The exhibition looks at the boundaries of materials in relation to human and non-human entities. Events unfolding all around us, microscopic to macro, we find ourselves tangled between them. These seemingly small happenings become heightened, fixated on and replayed over and over when they circle a significant moment.
We are invited to spend time with the audio (made in collaboration with Neil Rose) take a seat, begin to notice how the narratives collide and cross over.
There is a sense of something unfolding just out of sight, which never amounts to anything. The narratives slip and slide together, at times appearing to seamlessly flow.
They load the bap and in doing so always break the yolk…. by breaking the yolk, the main explosion has already taken place and is far more manageable now than hitting the yolk a couple of bites in and having less bap left to control the flow, inevitably ending in yolk down the front of my shirt or onto the triangle of the car seat visible between my thighs
A series of sculptural works are poised around the outer perimeter of the gallery. Metal frames on castors congregate in corners, tense, amidst an incident or simply queuing at a pay machine. Blown glass headrests jostle for space, sometimes sharing the same structure, uncomfortably close, mimicking characters in the narratives.
On welded metal stands sheets of fused glass mark out the room, the sheets are cut to the shape of the artist’s car windows. The glass is covered in carbon trails, traces of ash from horsehair sandwiched between the two sheets. In places the sheets are swollen, these swells are where the glass has been forced out to cater for the trapped gas given off from burning the hair during the firing process. The glass is weaker here, more liable to burst.
COLLABORATOR:
Neil Rose: Neil is a Sound Designer and Senior Lecturer (with Course Leader remit) Film and Screen Arts at Arts University Plymouth, who specialises in electroacoustic/acousmatic music, live performance, film, animation and design. Neil worked closely with Harriet over the course of nearly a year to create the sound work ‘Taking care of the yolk’ 2024.
AUP TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND FABRICATION:
Colin Wilkes is a glass artist and Glass Workshop Coordinator at Arts University Plymouth. He specialises in glass blowing and has worked closely with Harriet to fabricate the glass blown headrests, ‘Resting Points (a-k)’ 2024 featuring in the exhibition.
Amy Whittingham is a glass artist and the Glass Department Workshop Coordinator at Arts University Plymouth. Amy has worked closely with Harriet to give essential technical support and the opportunity for experimentation to develop the fused glass sculptures in the exhibition.
Harriet Bowman works between writing and sculpture shifting between a material-led practice and written works that accompany, are performed alongside or stand in for sculpture.
In her writing she focuses on non-human character development, giving human qualities to inanimate or micro-organisms to build relationships to other life forms that could exist in an alternate world. The writing is punctuated with detailed descriptions of materials and their processes, for example the tanning process of leather that goes on to form a car seat.
