‘Hold’ is an exhibition of new sculpture and moving-image work by Jolanta Dolewska and Elke Finkenauer, exploring themes of power, care, adaptation and resistance. The exhibition is accompanied by a text by Laura Haynes, and a limited edition publication.
Dolewska’s moving-image work ‘Overthrows’ presents a play-like engagement between a performer and un/human soft sculptures. This encounter draws on grappling techniques from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, based on the idea that a smaller person can overcome a larger one through technique. Seeking to trace movements of engagement, defence, and withdrawal she explores the potential for overthrow inherent in the process of physical encounter. A series of ceramic sculptures ‘Heads’ document the physical impacts of varied self-defence manoeuvres.
Finkenauer’s ‘Tend to Improbable Structures’ is a series of sculptural snapshots reimagining unconventional constructions her late-father built around the home, like an outdoor TV shelf under a grapevine lit by coloured bulbs, and a doormat screwed to the laminate floor so it didn’t slip. Using what was to-hand he created slices of a personal, practical utopia. Borrowing his fabrication ethos she re-imagines these forms in wood offcuts, repurposed fabric and construction paper – material remnants of lived-in spaces and a practice of working things out.
Jolanta Dolewska (born Warsaw, Poland) is an artist based in Glasgow.
Elke Finkenauer (born Aotearoa New Zealand) is an artist based in Glasgow.
Laura Haynes is a writer, editor and academic based in Glasgow.