Butcher Bike Banana: Olivia Bax’s Solo Exhibition ‘Home Range’
At first glance, the gestural limbs and puckered paper skins in Olivia Bax's solo show Home Range at London’s Holtermann Fine Art give an impression of fragility. The light, chimerical contraptions hang with purpose, like eccentric machines inhabiting a dream factory, and fulfil some fantastic, unknown function.
Olivia Bax, How Do You Do, 2019. Steel, chicken wire, newspaper, UV resistant PVA, household paint, plaster, UV varnish, fixing, milliput, handle. 174 x 96 x 20 cm. Photo by Ollie Hammick. Courtesy of Holtermann Gallery.
Bax may be young but she’s already hugely prolific. Born in Singapore, she graduated from London's Slade University with an MFA in Sculpture and worked as a studio assistant for Sir Anthony Caro. She has been awarded the Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize in 2016, the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award in 2019, and various additional accolades and residencies worldwide. She has been featured in countless publications and her work belongs to notable collections such as the Arts Council England Collection, The Ingram Collection, and Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens. She continues to investigate the ergonomics of public spaces, and Home Range explores themes of environment, territory, and habitat. Accompanying the exhibition is a text written by curator Dr. Jon Wood.
Installation view of Home Range, 2021. Steel, polystyrene, newspaper, UV resistant PVA, household paint, epoxy clay. 82 x 46 x 18 cm. Photo by Camille Moreno.
“They are actually quite robust,” explains gallerist Anaïs Gensollen at Holtermann Fine Art. Not only that, but they are light enough for Bax to move around easily despite her slight stature. The paper-pulp sculptures are enforced with steel armatures, chicken wire, plaster, and cardboard, providing stout skeletons to the otherwise breakable parchment membranes. The sculptures not on the wall are equipped with wheels, adding comical utility to the otherwise inscrutable usefulness of the apparatus.
Installation view of Portal, 2020. Steel, chicken wire, newspaper, UV resistant PVA, household paint, plaster, Milliput, screws, bolts. 255 x 200 x 176 cm. Photo by Camille Moreno.
The dualities continue. Vibrant pastels and soft neons employ a palette redolent of acid-washed birthday cake from a utopian or otherworldly space. Look closer and some of the bright, bumpy husks reveal earth toned textures. Instead of separating the processes of painting and sculpting, Bax mixes paint directly into her pulp batter from the start, allowing the colours to radiate from within. She uses paint as a building material rather than a surface treatment. The forms are mechanical but also carnal, organic, and imperfect. Human-sized but equally reminiscent of colossal shelters we might expect to retreat to on future far off planets. They feel recognisable but unequivocally odd. Put simply, the works make you smile.
Olivia Bax, Off White, 2020. Steel, plastic funnel, chicken wire, paper, UV resistant PVA, plaster, household paint, wheels. 145 x 170 x 90 cm. Photo by Corey Bartle-Sanderson. Courtesy of Holtermann Fine Art.
There is, however, a reflection that sets in after attempting to deduce what exactly their mechanism consists of. It’s a game. The mind wants to reconcile what it is seeing. Identifiable objects emerge from behind the gay epidermis. A handle, a valve, a basin. Could there be a secret, sinister function behind these instruments? Bax has led us down the garden path and enticed us with candy only to question the certainty of what is both fearfully familiar and joyously bizarre. Her Instagram stories feature amusing reposts from artist John Walter and other gallery goers’ conclusions as to what the sculptures resemble: “Butcher Bike Banana,” “Ducking Stool Fire Escape Masked Singer,” and “Gorgeous Lumpy Chairs,” among others. This playful tug of war succeeds in the eternal mission of art: to make us look at what we think we know and see something new within it.
Home Range is on view until March 5 2022 at Holtermann Fine Art in London.
Camille Moreno
Features Co-Editor, MADE IN BED