Lauren McNicoll – My 248th Period
This exhibition has emerged as a direct output of a recent personal project started by McNicoll in December 2023. Born out of a period of profound personal upheaval, this project seeks to spark conversations about identity and human connection. By adopting an archaeological approach, McNicoll’s work explores the experience of existing as a gay woman in 2024, examining the various boundaries surrounding this identity. The tactility, rich history, memory, and malleability of clay is used as an integral symbol within this body of work. The exhibition intertwines elements such as tropes, metaphors, and intangible forces like dreams, memory, and movement and in some instances the mechanisms used to create some of the work itself are integrated into the final piece of work.
For example, one sculpture incorporates objects and materials utilized in every part of the creation process: greenware clay, plaster moulds, fragments of bisque-only fired stoneware, and high-fired glazed stoneware all engaging with one another. This interplay allows materiality to transcend the confines of linear time, existing cohesively in multiple forms at once. The aesthetic of the unfinished activates thework and challenges ideas around expectations; questioning the moral notion of perfection or completeness. The sculptures embody a moment of something greater, something that is ever evolving, both physically and intellectually; just as we do as people.
“My 248th Period” featured a range of multi-media sculptures and pieces, investigating memory, queerness, malleability and identity.
“The aesthetic of the unfinished activates thework and challenges ideas around expectations; questioning the moral notion of perfection or completeness. The sculptures embody a moment of something greater, something that is ever evolving, both physically and intellectually; just as we do as people.”
Lauren McNicoll (b. London, 1995) is a ceramicist and artist living and working in South London. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses a space that sits between sculpture, performance, and workshop. Rooted in themes of queerness, community, and feminism, McNicoll's work grapples with the ways in which history and societal expectations play out in interpersonal encounters. Her sculptural output defy conventional forms, existing as ‘architectural bodies’ or ‘bodily architecture,’; exploring the sensibilities and edges of the queer female body. Recognizing that our interactions with the world are often unexpected and inevitable, Lauren creates her work and conducts queer body casting workshops from a place of deep trust within both herself, her participants and those she engages with. The result is intimate, personal, and powerful.
