Maria Kristofersson
Accompanied by Claire Benn’s Textiles
26th January - 17th March 2023
Line drawings are the basis for her work in clay – delicately coil-built constructions in clay can be seen as threedimensional drawings. The fragile and vulnerable are juxtaposed with robust and strong shapes. The familiar utilitarian forms of boxes and cylinders act as a canvas for her subtle surface textures.
This new body of work, shown for the first time at Flow Gallery, has a newly expanded, “earthy” colour palette, together with the restrained monochrome colours of terracotta, white and black.
“ The container can hide, preserve or protect. It is the intrinsic meaning of its function that interests me, not its practical purpose. ”
Photo by Andrew Montgomery
MK102
Large Cylinder White Terracotta, stoneware slip ø31cm, H;26cm £1,250.00
MK103
Large Wide Bottle Terracotta, stoneware slip ø31cm, H;25cm £1,250.00
MK107 Square Bucket
Terracotta, stoneware slip ø27cm, H;25cm £1,100.00
MK106 Round Bucket
Terracotta, stoneware slip ø25cm, H;24cm £1,100.000
MK108
Ochre Vessel
Terracotta, stoneware slip ø30cm, H;20cm
MK113
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
£200.00
MK114
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
£200.00
MK115
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
£200.00 SOLD
MK116
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
£200.00 SOLD
Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
ø6cm, H;13-16cm
Bottle Terracotta, stoneware slip
ø6cm, H;13-16cm
Bottle
stoneware slip
ø6cm, H;13-16cm
Bottle Terracotta, stoneware slip
ø6cm, H;13-16cm
MK121
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
£200.00
MK122
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm
MK123
Small Bottle
Terracotta, stoneware slip
Approx ø6cm, H;13-16cm £200.00
CB.T.1 Connected £1,300.00
CB.T.2 Let the Water Flow £1,300.00
CB.T.3 Wall & Fence £1,300.00 SOLD
CB.T.4 Field Margins £2,340.00
CB.T.5 Bideford Black - the Beginnings of Coal £2,080.00
CB.T.6 Coal Seams £1,755.00
CB.T.7 Brutalism in Cast Concrete £1,755.00
CB.T.8 Poor Harvest £2,080.00
“ A piece of cloth (usually linen or hemp) is always my starting point. Earth pigments provide the colour and connect me back to the land. Soya milk binds pigment to cloth and enables me to communicate the visual details found within the landscape. Thread is the final addition, adding quiet accents and a literal surface texture that fingertips can feel. These are my quiet materials, used to make art that evokes solitude, stillness and silence. ”
British Textile Artist Claire Benn lives and works in a converted barn in Surrey. Inspired by remote and wild landscapes.
Bideford Black – The Beginnings of Coal and Coal Seams
Celebrating Bideford Black, a clay-based pigment running alongside seams of anthracite in North Devon created from the fossilised remains of ferns growing 300 million years ago. Claire was given some Bideford Black which is rich in carbon, and this work references the coal mined in North Devon 200 years ago.
Brutalism in Cast Concrete, Wall & Fence, Connected and Let the Water Flow
Inspired by a residency in Los Gázquez. The farmhouses reference brutalist architecture and cast concrete and are lined with endearing little bamboo fences. Just before Claire arrived for the residency a weather front brought sand across from the Sahara. Claire saw a photo at the height of the storm, showing an orange, sand-loaded sky and an apricot-tinted farmhouse. To assist in the restoration of the land, its flora and its fauna there is an old water catchment system it directs rainfall and run-off from the slopes. This run-off is fed into cast concrete collection basins before being directed out into irrigation channels in the fields.
Poor Harvest
In 2021 Claire returned from Clayhill Arts in Somerset, with a bag of soil and a bag of straw to use in my work. 2020 and 2022 saw drought in the south of England due to the prolonged, unusually hot summers. The land dried out, the soil became as iron and the crops struggled, resulting in poor harvests for our farmers.
Connected
Linen, soil and Saharan dust, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
£1,300.00
CB.T.1
W;36cm, L;91cm
Let the Water Flow
Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
CB.T.2
W;36cm, L;91cm
£1,300.00
Wall & Fence
Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
SOLD
CB.T.3
W;91cm, L;36cm
£1,300.00
Field Margins
Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
CB.T.4
W;93cm, L;147cm
£2,340.00
Beginnings of Coal
Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
CB.T.5
Bideford Black - the
W;99cm, L;147cm £2,080.00
Coal Seams
Stretched on board. Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread
CB.T.6
W;91cm, L;91cm
£1,755.00
CB.T.7 Brutalism in Cast
Concrete
Stretched on board. Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread.
W;91cm, L;91cm £1,755.00
Poor Harvest Stretched on board. Linen, natural earth pigments bound with soya milk. Hand stitch with natural fibre thread.
CB.T.8
W;99cm, L;147cm
£2,080.00
