Coco Crampton Bowers: from form to public

About

A sense of precision criss-crosses Crampton's installations creating a sense of deliberate display. There are angles, planes or facets on metal, cut  hardwood, hammered sheeting and smooth paint, faux finishes, woven fabrics and glazed ceramics, accentuated textures which vie for the viewer’s attention.

These contrasts are commanding as they confront the viewer. 

Stately sculptures come out of simplified jigsaw. The palette of colours gentle, at times feminine, is off set with flat, saturated inks against dull tonalities reminiscent of waiting rooms of the 21st century.

 Confident, the works coexist and rival each other to create a visually soothing, pared down prism of the artist’s repertoire, not unlike a meadow, a bower- private yet accessible.  At times installed there to stimulate the spectator. Objects are at play, they take over the stage.

Feeling of utility in the works’ shapes indicated by the strictness of form, is misleading.  A negation by the carefully rendered faux finishes permeates the works.  Black and white starkness suggests mixed emotional aggregates.

These pieces are not what they seem…

Taken from the historical language of embellishment within the domestic sphere and the everyday useful object, these works become more than they proclaimed to be at first.  Under the guise of a refined, somehow, exotic camouflage of saturated paints, knitted patterns out of cinquecento, deliberate marks and splattering, strings and fringing, the artist’s effigies turn into suggestions of something else entirely.  They are hieroglyphs and references to ascetic representation, no details seemingly superfluous, but absolutely necessary.

Objects take centre stage and turn important. From the modest thrown clay pot to the braided matting, is Crampton 's endeavour where modesty and pomp collide. 

Quiet confidence emanates, varied in size and complexity alike s bowerbirds mating display