We are happy to announce Tea Seas, an exhibition by Claire Pendrigh, in which she will show work she did during her residence at Studio Kura.
Claire Pendrigh is an Australian visual artist who works across the mediums of painting, drawing, knitting and installation. She has exhibited in Australia and internationally in the United Kingdom and the United States. Her time at Studio Kura will be her second artist residency, her first residency taking place in Iceland in 2012.
Pendrigh’s work is characterized by a search to locate the individual in the context of the universe. Often combining elements that symbolize the homely with scientific theories, Pendrigh’s work explores the tension between the scale of the universe and the everyday experience of being human.
Here are some words from the artist herself.
Tea is a very human beverage. It embodies society, community, hospitality and ritual – social elements that are key to our human existence. Tea is a way to connect with people and open conversations on a domestic scale, but tea can also present a connection to the human existence on far a greater stage.
The water in your teacup is one part of the finite quantity of water we have on Earth. This water changes form, but it is never replenished. The water in your teacup is the same water that that flowed in the blood of dinosaurs, and it is the same water from primordial sea, which may have nursed the first living cells on Earth.
Everything tends towards entropy, just as a rock face is eroded by the force of the sea, however the exception to this rule is life. Living organisms have the ability to organize. We order elements, arrange cells into complex patterns, build societies and construct rituals.
Just as the circle of your teacup echoes the shape of the cells in your body, it also mirrors the shape of this pale blue dot that we inhabit. Somewhere in the space between order and entropy, is the everyday existence that we know – our work, hobbies, families, and all the interpersonal relationships that we facilitate over a cup of tea.
Taking its cues from the Japanese tea ceremony, Tea Seas follows a ritualistic process of repetition and restraint in order to explore this precarious human existence.
Claire Pendrigh Tea Seas
Date: March 28 (Saturday) to March 29 (Sunday), 11:00 to 19:00, free entrance
* We will hold an opening party on Saturday the 28th, starting at 15:00.