SHAPING TIME
COCO CRAMPTON & JOSEPH GOODY
11th - 27th September 2024
Sims Reed Gallery 43A Duke Street St James's London SW1Y 6DD
Katherine Oliver Oliver Projects +44 (0) 7717 792 766 www.oliverprojects.com | katherine@oliverprojects.com
Anya Kashina & Romy Welstead
Sims Reed Gallery +44 (0) 207 930 5111 www.gallery.simsreed.com | gallery@simsreed.com
Left: Coco Crampton, Silent Staircase, 2024 (detail)
Sims Reed Gallery and Oliver Projects are delighted to present a joint exhibition which brings together two contemporary artists – Coco Crampton and Joseph Goody. The show presents exciting new directions for both artists, exploring their mutual interest in playful repetition, and the relationship between words and form.
Working respectively in sculpture and painting, Coco and Joseph’s visual languages have evolved rapidly in recent months. For Coco, a move to Devon and the arrival of her first child have initiated fresh ways of working using plaster and cloth to explore storytelling. These new sculptures, which are shaped like books and heads, are painted with abstract blocks of colour.
A similarly significant shift in Joseph’s practice has also occurred in the past year. His compositions - which historically have been populated by large, abstract forms - have begun to feel dramatically different, with a greater sense of complexity. The multiple shapes inhabiting these new works explore limitations and edges, creating their own beginnings and endings.
The exhibition features new paintings by Joseph and new sculptures by Coco, alongside works on paper by both artists.
Left: Joseph Goody, Latitude, 2024 (detail)
JOSEPH GOODY Paintings
Joseph Goody’s imagery is inspired by – in his words – ‘literature, castle walls, parapets and ideas of organisation’. Meticulously composed, his large-scale paintings and works on paper have historically explored geometric forms and layering with a softness that creates a sense of tension.
Josephs recent paintings on have seen the artist explore new territory where linear mark-making becomes more important, creating woven pathways from which distinct shapes emerge. For Joseph, these pictures ‘feel drastically different; the idea has always been there, but I’ve never fully invested in it’.
The latest works in this exhibition were the first to emerge after a period of time when the artist has lost access to his studio. He says: ‘These more complex paintings reflect a multiplicity of moments. Each time I’d return to a work, it would be with the intention of moving forwards towards something new. The painting ‘Bookmark’ was the first of this new group. I was thinking about the similarities between pausing reading, picking up a book again, and continuing a narrative into the unknown.’
Joseph graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2011 and won the Neville Burston Award for Painting. He continued his studies at the Royal Drawing School where he won The Patrons Club Prize in 2012. Sid Motion Gallery, London, presented a solo exhibition of paintings in 2020. Oliver Projects has shown Joseph’s works regularly including at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair (2021 and 2023) and, most recently, in ‘Almost Blue’ at the RWS Gallery (May 2024). Joseph is represented by Cob Gallery and he lives and works in south east London.
Bookmark
181 x 131 cm
£ 5,500
2024 oil on canvas
130.5 x 161 cm
£ 4,650
Solstice
Another Time
2024 oil on canvas
161 x 141 cm
£ 5,000
2024 oil on canvas
140.5 x 111 cm
£ 4,100
Canopy
£ 3,850 Primary
2024 oil on canvas
130.5 x 105.5 cm
Joseph Goody, Tether, 2024 (detail), info on page 13
JOSEPH GOODY Monoprints
Latitude
2024
oil based monoprint
76 x 56 cm
£ 1,500 (framed)
Semblance
76 x 56 cm
£ 1,500 (framed)
2024 oil based monoprint
2024
oil based monoprint
76 x 56 cm
£ 1,500 (framed)
Tether
£ 1,500 (framed)
2024 oil based monoprint
76 x 56 cm
White Dawn
JOSEPH GOODY Woodcuts
Negation 1
2021
woodcut, edition of 15
30 x 23 cm
£ 325 (unframed)
£ 450 (framed)
Negation II
2021
woodcut, edition of 15
30 x 23 cm
£ 325 (unframed)
£ 450 (framed)
Negation III
2021
woodcut, edition of 15
30 x 23 cm
£ 325 (unframed)
£ 450 (framed)
Negation 1V
2021
woodcut, edition of 15
30 x 23 cm
£ 325 (unframed)
£ 450 (framed)
COCO CRAMPTON Sculptures
Coco Crampton works in a variety of mediums connected to traditional crafts including ceramic, wool, and copper. Exploring historical and contemporary domestic forms and their functions, her minimalist, colourful reinterpretations – which often include elements of suspension or balance – are playful and reflective.
A move to rural Devon and the arrival of her first child have initiated fresh ways of working for Coco. Her most recent sculptures are made from plaster and cloth; painted with curved, geometric shapes, they have a sense of tactility in contrast to previous ceramic works. Considering the rhythmic process of storytelling, they also imply an intimate, human presence. In the artist’s words:
‘This new body of work explores ideas about journeys, sleep, the sea, language, and divination through signs: natural phenomena, dreams, words. Alongside the repeated motif of an open book there are head sculptures made up of fractured planes and painted in polychrome; some lying on pillows, weary and resting, and others mounted on ceramic plinths complete with elaborate hairdos. These are possibly significant, possibly affectatious; certainly, they are descriptive markers pointing to a narrative beyond pure form.’
Coco studied at Norwich School of Art and Design before graduating from the Royal Academy Schools in 2014. Select exhibitions include Oliver Projects’ fifth anniversary group exhibition ‘Almost Blue’ (2024), ‘Plans for Living’, Weald Contemporary, Arundel (2024), ‘Contested Bodies’, Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds University (2023-4); Domestic Wears, Belmacz, London (2020-21) and the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London (2020). Her work has been commissioned on several occasions for example by the Charleston Trust in 2018. She is represented by Belmacz, London, and lives and works in Devon.
Right: 2024
plaster, bandage, paint, glazed ceramic
20 x 26 x 37 cm
£ 3,240 Seamark
£ 3,240
plaster, bandage, paint, glazed ceramic
18.5 x 20 x 44 cm
Silent Staircase
Right: Silent Staircase (alternative angle)
2024
plaster, bandage, paint, feather pillow
28 x 24 x 15 cm
£ 3,720
Pale Young Moon
£ 3,720
2024
plaster, bandage, paint, feather pillow
39 x 24 x 15 cm
Mermaid’s Child
2024
plaster, bandage, paint
17 x 20 x 36 cm
£ 3,000
Pink Prow
plaster, bandage, paint
22 x 29 x 6 cm
£ 2,760
Between Leaves
Bookmark
£ 3,000
2024 plaster, bandage, paint, 33 x 29.5 x 9 cm
plaster, bandage, paint
32 x 29 x 7.5 cm
£ 3,000
Nightfall
£ 1,920
2024 organic cotton
21.5 x 20 cm (closed), 43 x 20 cm (open)
Cloth Book
Coco Crampton, Cloth Book, 2024 (alternative view)
COCO CRAMPTON Ceramics
Consulting with the Rain
2021
glazed ceramic
16 x 16 x 22 cm
£ 3,600
Drinking Song
2021 glazed ceramic
17 x 16 x 12 cm
£ 3,360
2020
glazed ceramic
23 x 30 x 23 cm
£ 3,600
Long Soak 2021
glazed ceramic
21 x 12 x 10.5 cm
£ 3,360
COCO CRAMPTON Drawings
2024 pencil on paper
29.7 x 42 cm
£ 1,560 framed
2024 pencil on paper
29.7 x 42 cm
£ 1,560 framed
Novelette 1
Novelette II
2024
29.7 x 42 cm
£ 1,560 framed
29.7 x 42 cm
£ 1,560 framed
pencil on paper
Novelette 1II
2024 pencil on paper
Novelette 1V
Left: The Sea and Sleep by Coco Crampton
This page: Coco Crampton, Silent Staircase, 2024 (detail), info on page 19
Oliver Projects
Launched in 2019, Oliver Projects is a nomadic gallery and online shop based in south east London. Specialising in contemporary works on paper, it exhibits pieces by a focused group of early and mid-career artists in a diverse range of venues from art fairs to private homes. As a gallery with no permanent exhibition space, Oliver Projects is proud to work in collaboration with other galleries to create varied and welcoming experiences in which to discover contemporary art.
Sims Reed Gallery
Sims Reed Gallery is located alongside Sims Reed Books, in the heart of London’s St. James’s. The gallery specialises in modern, post-war and contemporary original prints and works on paper. Founded in 1995, the gallery has since grown to hold an extensive inventory of works by leading artists of the 20th century alongside major contemporary artists. These include David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Estes, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso.
Sims Reed Gallery is a member of the Society of London Dealers (SLAD) and the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA).
This is the second collaboration between Oliver Projects and Sims Reed Gallery, following on from a duo show of Katherine Jones RA and Temsuyanger Longkumer, in March 2024.
Joseph Goody, Semblance, 2024 (detail), info on page 12
Right:
