Poppy Whatmore
Through my sculptural works, the real and unreal meet at different forks in a path. I transform everyday objects as a point of departure to create potential agency in routine, power dynamics. With memories from real events, I am interested in the potential of material language as a reflective means to address struggles of lived experience.
Fragments of memories are woven into material re-enactments or select sites. I am interested in the myths we create for ourselves and as a communication methodology, predominantly in ambiguous, narrative fragments. My favourite baby-sitter told far-fetched truths introducing me to scientific, wonders of the galaxy. Years afterwards I understood her stories could not be true, yet I still admired how she kept me spell bound.
In ‘Say Yes to a New Adventure’, (2021) a pair of high heeled boots, carved in foam and wrapped in black tape, stand on a twig bundle propped up high by a found wooden bar. They appear on the edge of a precipice, the beginning or end of a precarious narrative. We are unaware whether these black boots are on top of the world, or about to fall down from a great height.
I often characterize and animate chosen materials into anthropomorphic or zoomorphic forms. I am currently making works inspired by sandworms’ casts on the beach bed. With a precarious nature, I am constructing concrete tubes imploding and exploding form furniture such as chairs, tables, blinds and ladders, which escape control positing new forms of resistance.
Selected Exhibitions and Achievements
A Body A Part, APT Gallery, London (curated and exhibited)
On The Edge, Royal British Sculptors, (2023)
Yobitsugi: Beyond Repair (curated by Paul Carey-Kent), White Conduit Projects, London (2022)
FairArtFair selected by Marcelle Joseph (2022)
Commissioned to install a work for ArtHouse Jersey as part of Skipton Big Ideas in Jersey, (2021)
Wells Contemporary (2020)
AutoFiction Symposium and Exhibition, Royal College of Art
Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Want to Go To The Office Party (solo), Stone Space Gallery (2018)
Creekside Open, 2017 selected by Jordan Baseman and Alison Wilding
Winner Aesthetica Art Prize, (2013)
New Contemporaries (2012) where works were chosen for Saatchi Gallery’s Public Collection.
Residences
PADA studios in Portugal; Passengers (2020)
Unfolding Terrace on site at Brunswick Centre, London
Radidal Residency III, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop.
