Anne Athena: Materialising the Unseen by JGM Gallery

ANNE ATHENA

Materialising the Unseen

ANNE ATHENA

Materialising the Unseen 18 May - 25 June 2022

Published on the occasion of the exhibition by JGM Gallery 24 Howie Street London SW11 4AY info@jgmgallery.com

Cover Image: Mirroring, 2022 (detail) Inner Leaf: Reach - Give, 2022 (detail)

I met Anne Athena whilst she was completing her studies at the Royal College of Art, (our next door neighbours in Battersea). When I initially encountered her work at the RCA students’ final exhibition I was drawn to it immediately. Anne’s skill and narrative are impossible to ignore. Her intricate patterns and language are so engaging, I knew straight away that I had to meet this artist. We did consequently meet and have continued our conversation over the last few years. Anne has been working in her home country of Denmark and now in London where she was awarded a residency at Cockpit Art in Deptford. The body of work produced for Materialising the Unseen has been in the making for almost three years and the exceptional quality of the 15 ceramic pieces needs to be witnessed. I’m delighted to be working with Anne and to present this significant body of work at JGM Gallery for her first solo exhibition in the UK.

Jennifer Guerrini Maraldi

Mirroring, 2022 Hand built ceramic open shaped vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment 40 x 14 cm

Anne Athena: Visualising the Unseeable by Nick Duxbury

I first encountered Anne Athena’s work through the Young Masters Art Prize, her piece Venus speaking to me of calm and balance, reflection and humanity. Very few artworks make you change your breathing when you look at them, but I can remember the first time I saw Venus slowing me down physically and, almost like looking at a yoga instructor, making me want to mirror the pose: palms forward by my side, eyes closed, finding an inner balance. I had featured Anne’s work in an exhibition before we actually met in person – Covid restrictions kept her from travelling to England from her studio in northern Denmark – yet through the symbols which emerge on Anne’s work and various conversations over text and email, I felt I had an understanding of her thought processes. But I was wrong. Anne had explained to me that her work is a way of dealing with a world that is constantly overwhelming and overstimulating, a way of processing her own emotions and getting them out of her system. I had assumed that she would be the kind of artist who planned each work methodically in detailed sketchbooks. So when we sat down in person together for the first time and she told me that the imagery on the vessels is mostly unplanned, spontaneous, and from the subconscious, I’m sure I looked a little shocked.

Opposite: Installation View, Born from Water (foreground) and Are We Still Human?

Anne does keep a detailed diary of the symbols that she creates and collects. All of them have a deeply personal meaning for her, and all of them will have a meaning for the viewer, but is it the same meaning – and does it matter? In his book, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Umberto Eco says that ‘every specific semiotics is at most a human science, and everybody knows how controversial such a notion is’. If I write here that I am picturing a scene where the wind is blowing through a tree’s branches right now, it is not the same tree that you picture when you read the sentence. Likewise with Anne’s symbolism when she uses staircases or doors, they may not lead to the same place that you imagine, the flow of water may not feel the same to you, and the boats or lighthouses might not mean the same thing when you look at them compared to when I look at them. That’s part of the beauty of where semiotics and art cross over. The emotions and stories in Anne’s artworks are deeply her own, yet because of the symbolism, they are also completely tied to the emotions of the viewer too.

Anne said to me that her work is like talking in pictures, colours and form, but it’s also her reminder to take care of herself. Some of the figures in her work are disassociated, detached, and wanting to escape their current situations: taking selfies with smartphones and using VR headsets rather than engaging with their surroundings. These are some of the 21st-century tools that prevent people from connecting with nature – and themselves. Conversely, the tea ceremony on Healing Arts, the monk and temple on Born From Water, the forest on Are We Still Human?: they are all ways for Anne to stay in touch with herself in the everyday. Her ultimate visualisation of the imperative for self-awareness is on The White Shaman, where a shaman induces an out-of-body experience: an ancient way of dealing with pressing problems, guidance with decision-making, self-empowerment, greater connections to others, and healing grief. In Anne’s other works, the figures are guided by animals, but also guiding each other and trying to help each other; they are swimming for survival or looking to fly, using boats to head towards inner calm.

It seems to me that Anne’s latest pieces have a constant theme at their core: Jungian psychological therapy. It is not solely Anne’s emotions on display, but also her view of society, or the way I interpret her view of society. Beyond the processes of Jungian therapy working with dreams and symbols, it’s more the connection with our unconscious mind which interested Carl Jung that I see in Anne’s work.

As in Venus, Anne’s work still conveys balance and calm. At the centre of this new body of work, one of Anne’s Guardian figures maintains a vigil, albeit in a VR headset and standing astride the plastic waste of the 21st century. At the back of the exhibition space, two hands extend across the space: Reach – Receive and Reach – Give, two reciprocal actions – in my mind, two symbols of positivity and hope.

Above: Are We Still Human?, 2022 (details)

Nick Duxbury studied at Dartington College of Arts in Devon and curated Welcome To My World: ceramics with narrative in 2021

Heartache, 2022 Hand Sculpted ceramic relief, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 23 x 21 cm

Winged Heart, 2022 Hand built ceramic with glaze and lustre 18 x 16 cm

Rose Heart, 2022 Hand built ceramic with glaze and lustre 15 x 22 cm

Installation view; Materialising the Unseen, JGM Gallery

Born from Water, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel with blown glass lid, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 60 x 35 cm

Reach - Receive, 2022 Hand built ceramic open shaped vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment 33 x 15 cm

Reach - Give, 2022 Hand built ceramic open shaped vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment 36 x 11 cm

The White Shaman, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 48 x 32 cm

Entanglement Entangled are we through the ghosts of our past and the hopeful dreams of our future. Vibrating the sound of a very specific melody. Slowly drowning out the voices of all that came before us.

Anne Athena

Guardian of Time, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 44 x 32 cm

After the Storm, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 50 x 29 cm

Installation view; Materialising the Unseen, JGM Gallery

Moments in Time - Presence 1, 2022 Hand sculpted ceramic relief, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 26 x 22 x 7 cm

Connection Invisibility manifesting unavoidable etheric shapes of matter that flow between you and I Nowhere to get rid of Nowhere to find.

Anne Athena

Moments in Time - Presence 2, 2022 Hand sculpted ceramic relief, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 23 x 24 x 7 cm

Healing Arts, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 53 x 30 cm

Human connection longing things more things escape more things ideology belief projection separation power possession of things so so many things illusion loss

Anne Athena

Are We Still Human?, 2022 Hand built ceramic vessel, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 53 x 33 cm

Magic Hands - The Essence, 2022 Hand sculpted ceramic relief, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 30 x 16 x 8 cm

Magic Hands - Breaking the Bond, 2022 Hand sculpted ceramic relief, under and overglaze painted with ceramic pigment and gold lustre 30 x 16 x 5 cm

Anne Athena b. 1984, Denmark, lives and works in London

EDUCATION 2017 – 2019 2010 – 2014

MA in Ceramics, Royal Collage of Art, London. The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2022 Materialising the Unseen, JGM Gallery, London, UK GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2020 MERRY-GO-ROUND, JGM Gallery, London, UK 2019 Young Masters, La Galleria, Pall Mall, London, UK 2019 MA Degree Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK 2019 Students of RCA 2017-2019, Preston Fitzgerald Art Advisory, London, UK 2017 Heart Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark 2016 Galeri Wolfsen, Aalborg, Denmark 2016 Landscape: Islands, Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, UK 2015 Project Network part II, Guldagergaard, Skaelskor, Denmark AWARDS /GRANTS 2020 The Pierce Loughran Memorial Scholarship 2018 Waddesdon Manor, Rothschild Foundation 2013 Esther and Jep Finks Memorial Fund for Architecture and Crafts, Aarhus, Denmark RESIDENCIES 2020 Lefebvre & Fils, The Residency, Versailles, France 2020 Wedgwood Factory, Stoke on Trent, UK. Resulting in the body of work How I Lost My Blue Eyes 2016 Phoenix Art Space, Brighton, UK 2015

Guldagergaard, Skaelskor, Denmark

Opposite: Installation View, Born from Water (above) Guardian of Time (below)

Warrior I am a warrior with no weapon; my only battle is for the sweet smell of spring flowers and my right to breathe freely with peaceful chest and silent mind. My course is for liberation of the human spirit; to break the chains of shadows and for every child’s right to breathe deeply and smell the flowers in peace.

Anne Athena

ANNE ATHENA

Materialising the Unseen 18 May - 25 June 2022