Posted 6th October 2020
Posted 4 years ago
By Unknown
Emerging artist Chris Day makes his debut at Vessel Gallery.
Emerging artist Chris Day makes his debut at Vessel Gallery. https://www.londoncraftweek.com/events/blown-bound-bold-vessel-gallery/
Being imperceptible
In the time that one knows Christopher Day, one learns how beauty and horror in his practice exists, it borrows the seductive qualities of glass to make work that comments on issues of race with narratives that range from complex inquiries to unflinching social vignettes. Day makes objects that are more than racially defined, reflecting multiple dimensions of identity and experience.
Day is a mixed race artist who uses his craft to navigate what it means to be black in the UK. And also, white. While he might be both, he sometimes feels like he is not enough of either. His new work, deeply personal in exploration, are often self-portraits that explore what it means to be biracial in the UK by playing on stereotypes and aspects of generalisations. Constantly aware of the complexity of race, his solo show, 'Blown, Bound and Bold' deals with the complexities of internalised racism as well as the difficulty of establishing an identity that isn't just stratified but overlooked by linear definitions of race and heritage.
Bringing together a very personal selection of work, the exhibition aims to create a sense of community and encourage discussion. Every detail including the unwieldy lines, the ensnared glass bubbles, copper cages and the visual weight of material is so imperfect, restrictive, distorted, a conscious acknowledgement of confronting the subject matter visually. An exhibition such as this is, as much as anything, an exhortation to face history and explore the present - as the Black Lives Matter movement actively reshaped our view of our recent past and future contingencies.
Day's professional engagement with art began quite late, but his past has always been enamoured with the expressive power of working with his hands (as a plumber).
With the artist there is insistent questioning on the history of the slave trade in the Eighteenth Century, reactive almost twitter-like in brevity the finished glass-blown pieces are acutely patient in awaiting response.
Traditions of art and history, Day's work exemplifies this immersion of personal preoccupation, a unique compositional line of enquiry and an emotive invitation to viewers to engage with that enquiry. The resulting observances confront viewers with a synthesis of new and often shocking realities.
Day's work is created in response to his own conflicting feelings of belonging as a man of mixed-race, which are compounded by the limited representation of diverse narratives by and of people of colour in art history and popular culture.
Day's practice investigates complex topics and social tensions through the use of the personal; often creating works that hold colour and light and the potential of how these incredible objects reflect the subtle and not-so- subtle integrations of ideas into individual lives and identities.
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