ash swale j u lia n watts
SARAH MYERSCOUGH GALLERY
ash swale j u lia n watts
17 June - 17 September 2022
i n t ro -duction Hannah Bestley Burt Ash Swale, Julian Watts’ first European solo exhibition, will encompass a survey of three key areas of his artistic woodworking practice: his bleached, bronze and blackened work. Between each area of his practice Julian produces work dissimilar in style, technique, finish, scale and material to the others, yet together they comprise compelling insight into Julian’s varied explorations of his core concerns as an artist and maker. Julian wants to pull us into a liminal space of the organic sensual grotesque. His world is one steeped in the arresting beauty of the underland of nature, but that pushes at the edges of western aesthetic assumptions. The first stage of Julian’s process is to remove the worst of the rot from his salvaged or foraged wood. He uncovers the remaining ‘good’ wood, following the lines of the natural growth, the cracking and decay. Julian’s work venerates these stages of decomposition and transformation. In nature this
breakdown of wood is necessarily entwined with new life, a crucial part of the circle of life, yet the contemporary Western mind is uncomfortable with associating beauty, life and new growth with insects, woodworm and decay. Julian’s work problematizes this limiting perspective. He urges us to see the beauty in the whole cycle, all of it is the wood, the forest, life. Coming upon Julian’s bleached work kickstarts a journey of shifting emotional responses, pulling us between layers of attraction and disquiet. The first impact comes from the enticing sense of puzzling materiality of the foraged woodfrom afar it masquerades as marble. Intrigue develops into delight at encountering the lightest touch of the biomorphic grotesque, amplified by his growing use of warm pink “blushing moments”. We are left with the seductive tactility of his almost slippery sanded smooth surfaces; until another detail of the work takes us by surprise and the journey begins again. This work is by turns beautiful, serene, silly and unsettling; it is a playfully organic corruption of the descent into the uncanny valley. The bronze tangles and blackened wall pieces are tied to the bleached work through their similar intentions and origins - a light-hearted, slightly surreal disruption of material expectation, suggestions of an animistic understanding of nature. They function as devotions to the particular forested landscape of Julian’s Oregon. Yet there is also something unmistakably sumptuous about Julian’s work. The bronze sculptures confronts us with this most openly- to cast collections of twig constructs in a precious metal is an almost ostentatiously votive act. The rich stain and polished finish of the black work casts a lush but serious tone. In conversation with the pink blushes and gleaming bronze this more representational work immerses the viewer in the narrative of Julian’s woodland.
So m e - wh e re Other Dr Stephen Knott Senior Lecturer Kingston University
A swale, like a bog or swamp, is a damp place, a recess between ridges where moss-ridden trunks emerge from layers of mulchy leaves and the copious fronds of ferns. Because of the ever-present moisture that hangs heavy in the air, trees are subject to rot and decay as they grow; branches are enveloped by lichen and then swallowed by the ground where they fall, metamorphosing into dank earth, home for burrowing insects and fledgling saplings. This ambiguous topography is the ‘genesis of everything,’ Julian Watts tells me, where things grow in mysterious ways, both compelling and repulsive. An ash swale on the land where Watts lives and works in the
foothills of the Oregon Coast Range has been his place of solace during the pandemic, but it is also plain weird where nature collapses in on itself in a constant synchronicity of incubation and decay. Watts seeks to bring out the amorphous, layered and atrophied qualities of the wood that he acquires from forests near to his studio. He does this by first removing the rot from the pieces of wood, scooping out pulpy deadwood to find the intact, firmer material. There is no telling what is revealed once the rot is removed, but once exposed Watts works intuitively, exploring the lines of the wood as it dries to reach a sculptural form. The intention is to follow the twists and turns of the tree’s growth – ‘taking each moment of the tree as a decisionmaking process,’ as Watts says – to go with the knots, burs, imperfections and insect trails; to tune into tree time. Being so sympathetic to the unique composition of each piece of wood is time-consuming and demands incredible skill. Watts ‘addresses’ the particularity of the salvaged wood in front of him, whether that is a knobbly branch growth, a burrow, or a crack, always using the material as a guide. Once the final form of the wood is realised, Watts adopts a distinct method of surface treatment. He introduces colour, not with opaque paint or varnish that closes the door on the variety inherent to wood grain but with chemical treatments that seep into the wood and remove its natural pigmentation. In two recent white bleached maple carvings, one free-standing on an impossibly narrow neck and another dish-like form, Watts has applied further pink stain. This makes the sculptures appear warm, delicate, almost blushing, heightening their sensory intrigue. But the bleaching also gives the wood the appearance of ceramic or marble. This is a deliberate attempt to jolt the viewer from their preconceptions of wood, a strategy to draw them into the material’s complexity and depth, replete
with gaping holes where knots once were, irregular grain, fissures, cracks, and with rough edges like the ends of torn bread, candied pink. Hours can be spent poring over these details. Watts wants to transport us somewhere ‘other’ with his manipulation of wood, away from its associations with warmth, approachability, and dependability, epitomised by anything from modernist cantilevered plywood to the pine cladding of ski chalets. To convey the spirit or soul of a tree is high on Watts’s agenda, but his work presents a stark contrast to woodworking pioneer George Nakashima’s restrained and largely rectilinear furniture. The otherworldliness of Watts’ work is closer to Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone’s surrealist imagination of wood. Using bleach as a surface treatment makes the wood appear ghoulish, ossified, even grotesque, like a post-apocalyptic fossil. Different techniques are used in a large wall-mounted square of walnut carved with a pattern of intertwining trees and lichen, made from a drawing Watts produced during his time in the swale. Here, the walnut is oxidised with steel wool and vinegar to give an ebonised surface. Gouges of multiple sizes texture the curvilinear recesses that comprise the tree trunks in the composition, creating a stark contrast to the smooth, polished background. Cracks and splinters in the centre loom as black holes. The work presents a cross-section of a forest much like French artist Eva Jopsin’s large cardboard installation Among the Trees, exhibited at London’s Hayward Gallery in 2019-20. Watts’ woodcarving draws our attention to the unsettling, mythical characteristics of the forest and reminds us of how we can get lost within its excessive materiality. Such qualities lurk within the folktales collated by the Brothers Grimm, the biomorphic images of fin-de-siècle French artist Odile
Rédon, gargoyles on gothic cathedrals, amoeboidal aliens in American mid-century popcorn horror films, and the incessant fuzz on heavily distorted, synthesised, guitar riffs in noisy, lowfi black metal. They are all references to nature’s primordial power that disturbs the corporeal boundary and arouses awe and fear in equal measure, like Seamus Heaney’s child narrator of “Death of a Naturalist” who runs away from the threat of being ‘clutched’ by a pool of thick frogspawn. Watts’ incessant attention and intuitive way of working resulting in manipulations that amplify the wood’s haunting presence. Although working in a largely solitary manner, Watts is not alone as a carver in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. A trip up Highway 101 will reveal countless gift shops and roadside shacks selling a variety of mushrooms, bears, mythical wizards or even the notorious Bigfoot, all made from salvaged wood from the surrounding area. These are produced by chainsaw carvers who are as prolific on YouTube as on the road’s edges. The phenomenon is a classic American cocktail of car culture, commercial tourism, the mystery and ungovernability of vast expanses of land, and anti-government politics that you might expect Watts to want to distance his work from. But after countless car journeys scouring the State for good sources of wood, Watts is keenly aware of their shared interests: establishing a mythical connection with the landscape through carving; working with pieces of local wood not fit for dimensional lumbar; and adopting an ‘anything goes,’ attitude to technique and embracing power tools. In the early 1990s Ghanaian artist El Anatsui became attuned to the creative possibilities of using a power-saw to work in wood after a residency in the US. Watts is similarly not bound by an aversion to power tools. He mixes technique and material to draw us into the depths of wood, albeit through abstract forms that show no hint of the verisimilitude common to roadside carvings.
In another series, Watts has arranged foraged branches and twigs into tangled, wiry, structures, stuck together with wax or glue, that burn out in the process of bronze casting. The result is not the straightforward immortalisation of wood. The remaining moisture in the branches and their fragility causes the shell of the cast to burst and for liquid metal to spill out and drip. Working closely with specialists at the foundry, Watts decided not to tidy up the drips but integrate them into the pieces, occasionally using a blowtorch to melt the metal further. The material constitution of the wood might have dissipated in the casting process, but nevertheless Watts is able to show in metal its mysterious, ambiguous and everchanging character. This recalls the trees of the swale in their watery hollow. We can learn from the swale and Watts’s invitation, through his sculpture, to reflect upon its particular qualities. Its drippy, dreamy and abundant atmosphere has stirred Watts to create work of poise and presence that document wood’s inherent variety and scale, from minute details within the grain to the monumental forests that engulf us.
Bleached / Bronze / Blackened
Ring / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 86 H x 89 W x 38 D cm
Plume / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 85 H x 92 W x 54 D cm
Shell / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 74 H x 69 W x 54 D cm
Peal / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 56 H x 51 W x 36 D cm
Growth / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 37 H x 47 W x 64 D cm
Peaks / 2022 Bleached maple, steel, epoxy, wood dye, acrylic paint 114 H x 156 W x 46 D cm
Bowl / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 20 H x 46 W x 36 D cm
Bean / 2022 Bleached maple, wood dye, acrylic paint 10 H x 18 W x 13 D cm
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J uli an’s Ash S wa le : “ At the farthest edge of my property there is an ash swale. It marks the lowest point in the little valley where I live, tucked into the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. This swale, like all swales, is a depressed, boggy place where the earth stays moist for much of the year. Because of the constant moisture and the swampy soil, the trees develop rot easily and often begin to decompose while still standing, decaying quietly beneath skins of moss and lichen. There is a constant sense of transformation here. The layers of black mud and decomposing ash wood below swell with fungi, insects, and the pale threads of new roots, congealing to sprout delicate tendrils into the air; ash saplings that weave up through the canopy, towards the light. I know of no other place where the presence of growth, decay, death, and regeneration are so strong, all intertwined in the wild, intricate tangle of the ash swale.
The ash swale became a place to reflect during these difficult times of loss and uncertainty. It seemed to embody the chaotic, almost violent transformative tendencies of our world, as if all the mysterious processes of life and death could be found there somewhere, seething in the muddy waterways and rotten wood, or humming overhead in the mossy branches. It was as if by coming to this strange place, the lowest and wettest point in the landscape, I was able to see my own grief and confusion, as well as hope and creative energy all reflected back to me in the natural world. ... I began incorporating my own abstracted rituals of remembrance when visiting the ash swale, placing candles under trees, building cairns, observing the moonrise, and other vague amalgamations of various pre-Christian traditions and ceremonies. I began reading ghost stories by authors like Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James, where the landscape becomes imbued with otherworldly powers, and at times I imagined the ash swale as a haunted wood. When birds flew into the large windows of my house, I would take their still warm bodies down to the swale, and place them under trees, alongside the candles in a nest of wet leaves. The ash swale became a place of evolving significance; at times menacing, at times comforting, a landscape marked by the rawness of nature, and, in the right moments, something almost supernatural. ”
Bleached / Bronze / Blackened
Bronze Root i / 2022 Bronze 55 H x 41 W x 25 D cm Unique
Bronze Root ii / 2022 Bronze 14 H x 32 W x 29 D cm Unique
Bronze Root iii / 2022 Bronze 25 H x 18 W x 10 D cm Unique
Bronze Root iv / 2022 Bronze 25 H x 13 W x 5 D cm Unique
Bronze Root v / 2022 Bronze 18 H x 19 W x 8 D cm Unique
Bronze Root vi / 2022 Bronze 41 H x 27 W x 17 D cm Unique
Bleached / Bronze / Blackened
Grove / 2022 Oxidized Walnut 127 H x 127 W x 8 D cm
Stream (Black) / 2022 Oxidized Walnut 90 H x 64 W x 7 D cm
Seams / 2022 Oxidized Walnut 50 H x 77 W x 6 D cm
C o n ve r - sat i o n Sarah Myerscough in discussion with Julian Watts
Why did you choose to work with natural materials? Is this a fundamental aspect of your practice? I chose to work with wood because I wanted my work to be in constant dialogue with the natural world. Every sculpture I make starts with a piece of wood that contains its own character and predispositions, and in the process of carving I must engage with these, both allowing them to guide me, and attempting to shape and harness them to my vision. I am constantly trying to draw unexpected shapes, colours, associations, and emotions out of the wood I work with. I think of this process as a kind of nurturing and guiding the hidden qualities of the wood to the surface. At the same time I feel the natural qualities of the wood are nurturing and guiding me as an artist and craftsperson.
I know the ethics of sustainability are a key component of your work, how do you incorporate these values into your process? I try to get my wood from local sources, either fallen trees in the area, or local mills and sawyers who work with loggers and larger commercial mills to save trees from being turned into woodchips or paper pulp. I am interested in this stage in the process, between finding standing or even fallen trees in forests and natural areas, and wood that has gone through the industrial logging and milling process. By sourcing wood at this in-between stage, already logged or fallen in the community, and not yet processed in a commercial mill, I am able to add another level of sustainability into the process, giving unique and overlooked trees a new life. Does the idea of slowness have a place in your work? Do you think slowness is an important idea in contemporary art-craftdesign? I am always conscious of the enormous lifespans of the trees that I work with. It is a powerful experience to realize that the grain I am so focused on as a visual element in my work is not just an aesthetic feature, but an actual record of life. In this way when we work with wood we are not just in dialogue with a physical material, but with time itself. Do you see the use of your materials and processes as reflective of a new idea of beauty? I am constantly trying to use my work to challenge people’s preconceptions of what constitutes beauty in physical objects. While my work can at times appear traditionally beautiful, serene, and serious, there is also a strong sense of humour, the uncanny, and very often the grotesque. I want the viewer to be drawn towards different emotions and associations when
experiencing my work, and to be surprised by where they end up. This is often achieved through the choice and treatment of material. I am drawn to wood that has undeniably complex and beautiful grain, but may have been affected by areas of rot, or grown into unbalanced, and even unappealing forms. I try to transform the wood to an almost unrecognisable point, sanding it to a smoothness that is both visually satisfying and unsettling corporeal. By replacing the natural warmth of the wood with stark white, black, or pink tones, the viewer is forced to take the time to decipher not only what the material and treatment is, but also if it is meant to be beautiful, grotesque or something else entirely.
Bio - g r ap h y Julian Watts is an artist and woodworker based in Alpine, Oregon. After earning a BFA in sculpture at the University of Oregon in 2012, Watts apprenticed under furniture makers before beginning his own practice. His work has been shown internationally in recent solo exhibitions. He has participated in numerous art and design fairs, including Design Miami/Basel, Fog Fair, and The London Design Festival, and has had work exhibited in the London Design Museum, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, and American Craft Magazine, among other publications. He was shortlisted for the Loewe Craft Prize in 2018. He has taught courses at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Anderson Ranch, and was the Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor of Wood Arts at the California College of the Arts.
EDUCATION University of Oregon, BFA in Sculpture, Certificate in Folklore Studies, Magna Cum Laude, 2012 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS 2021 Sapling, Curator’s Cube, Tokyo 2021 Outside In, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London 2021 Signature in Wood, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London 2021 I & the ME, The Shophouse, Hong Kong 2020 Homelife, Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, NY 2020 The Essential Goods Show, Fisher Parrish, Brooklyn, NY 2020 Fog Fair, Patrick Parrish Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2019 Scorched, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London, UK 2019 All Within, Curator’s Cube, Tokyo, Japan 2019 Fog Fair, Patrick Parrish Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2018 The Salon Art + Design, Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, NY 2018 Particles, Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2018 The Ashtray Show, Fisher Parrish, Brooklyn, NY 2018 Loewe Craft Prize 2018 Exhibition, The Design Museum, London, UK 2018 Fog Fair, Patrick Parrish Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2017 Design Miami/Basel, Patrick Parrish Gallery, Miami, FL 2017 London Design Festival, Cold Press Gallery, London, UK 2017 Detritus, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA 2017 The Glorious Object, Curated by Roger Stevens, Patrick Parrish, New York, NY 2017 Objection, Curated by Joseph Ian Henrikson of Anonymous Gallery, Crossing Collective, New York, NY 2017 Feelers, Patrick Parrish, New York, NY 2017 The Paperweight Show, Fisher Parrish, Brooklyn, NY 2016 Steinbeisser Experimental Gastronomy, in collaboration with chefs David Kinch, Corey Lee, Daniel Patterson, Montalvo,
Saratoga, CA 2016 Design Miami/Basel, Patrick Parrish Gallery, Miami, Fl 2016 London Design Festival, Cold Press Gallery, London, UK 2016 Selected Work, Heath Ceramics, Los Angeles, CA 2016 Perfect Imperfect, Nishi Gallery, Canberra, Australia 2016 Selected New Work, Boiler Room Gallery at Heath Ceramics, San Francisco, CA 2016 Salone del Mobile, BDDW, Milan, Italy 2015 London Design Festival, Cold Press Gallery, London, UK 2015 Utensil Collections, Installation commission for Etsy Headquarters, San Francisco, CA 2015 Building Blocks, Campfire Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2012-2015 Land of Songs, Producer & director of photography for documentary film about the Lithuanian folk singing tradition, San Francisco, CA / Vilnius, Lithuania 2014 Kindling, Campfire Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2013 Story of the Creative, See | Exhibition Space, New York, NY 2012 Our Streets, public art project funded by the city of Eugene, OR 2012 PINKELLIPSE, Laverne Krause Gallery, Eugene, OR 2012 Skins, Laverne Krause Gallery, Eugene, OR 2012 Bridges, Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts, Eugene, OR RESIDENCIES & TEACHING 2019 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Instructor 2018 California College of the Arts, Visiting Professor 2018 Anderson Ranch, Instructor 2017 AZ West 2015 Penland School of Crafts 2015 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Technical Assistant 2013 Vermont Studio Center
AWARDS 2018 Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor at California College of the Arts 2018 Loewe Craft Prize Finalist 2015 West Coast Craft Scholarship 2015 Michael Pierschalla Scholarship, Penland School of Crafts 2015 Technical Assistant Grant, Stuart Kestenbaum Scholarship Fund, Haystack Mountain school of Crafts 2013 Vermont Studio Center Artist’s Grant 2012 Jan Zach Memorial Award in Sculpture 2011 A&AA Scholarship Fund Award 2011 David McCosh Memorial Scholarship BIBLIOGRAPHY / PRESS 2020 The Design Edit, September 2020. Julian Watts: Homelife 2020 American Craft Magazine June/July 2020. Eating Differently 2020 Financial Times, April 8, 2020. Fashion Finds New Ways to Connect 2019 Gray Magazine, June 2019. Carving One’s Own Path 2019 Wall Street Journal Magazine, April 2019. Why Design is Embracing the Organic 2018 Dream, Vol. 3. Hidden Shapes: Julian Watts’ Tangled Dreams of Wood 2017 Architectural Digest, November 2017. The New York City Town House Julianne Moore Calls Home 2017 Artsy, October 2017. 6 Artists Who Are Pushing the Limits of Wood 2017 New Yorker, June 2017. An Experimental Feast, Plated by Artists to Amuse and Confound 2017 San Francisco Magazine, March 2017. The Looker 2017 San Francisco Cottages and Gardens, March 2017. Shape
Shifter 2017 American Craft Magazine, December / January 2017. Julian Watts 2016 C Magazine, November 2016. Carving a Niche 2016 Define Magazine, June 2016. Julian Watts 2016 Habitat, Spring 2016. Sacred Vessels 2016 Elle Decoration UK, April 2016. Details 2015 House and Garden UK, October 2015. Insider Notebook
Art photography : Additional photography : Catalogue Design : Year : Copyright :
Mario Gallucci Julian Watts Hannah Bestley Burt 2022 Sarah Myerscough Gallery & the artist
Sarah Myerscough Gallery The Old Boathouse 1 White Hart Lane London SW13 0PX +44 (0) 20 7495 0069 info@sarahmyerscough.com www.sarahmyerscough.com @sarahmyerscoughgallery
SARAH MYERSCOUGH GALLERY