Material <---> Artist
An exhibition of sculptures by Ruth Brenner, curated by Briony Marshall
On display at the Ashurst Emerging Artist Gallery, 1st September 2019 - 29th March 2020
Ruth Brenner is a Scottish artist working in Newcastle and Sussex. Her tactile work, while being a feast for the eyes, also raises questions about the relationship between artists and the materials they work with.
The first work you see when you enter the Ashurst reception area is a large block of amber rosin perched on a scaffold at head height. Brenner experiments with this natural material, derived from pine trees, and its viscosity. Rosin and bitumen (another material Brenner likes to use) are examples of amorphous materials that have both solid and fluid properties. Although imperceptible to the human eye, these blocks of seemingly solid material are slowly moving and changing shape in reaction to the forces placed on them by Brenner’s installations.
The magic of these ever-changing installations highlights that all artistic endeavours are a collaboration between the artists and the materials they choose to work with. This close collaborative relationship with materials continues in her ceramic and glass works. Here she lets go of control of the final outcome, letting chance and the material play an equal part. She applies semi-molten glass to hardwood planks, and a moment of action appears frozen in time as the glass stops dripping. Raku pots bear traces of fire and smoke, and delicate shards of ceramic show traces of nails and wire.
Brenner is currently working towards a practice-led PhD on the corporeal act of making, ie the importance of the artist’s physical body in the creative process. She is investigating this in the light of theories of phenomenology, which views reality as something that can only be understood in terms of how itis perceived by our consciousness, ie all objects and events are mere phenomena of the human brain.
Brenner looks for the beauty in the everyday, the broken, the failed, the ugly, the precarious, the dangerous. She finds joy in the challenge, the problem solving, the touch, the unexpected, and the physical endeavour. Elemental materials and materials used in industry are polished lovingly, handled preciously, melted and re-melted, burnt and re-burnt, stretched, folded, pierced and their stability tampered with and allowed to crack and break.
Brenner is seduced by the materials and the process, and that excitement is embodied in the work she produces.
The first work you see when you enter the Ashurst reception area is a large block of amber rosin perched on a scaffold at head height. Brenner experiments with this natural material, derived from pine trees, and its viscosity. Rosin and bitumen (another material Brenner likes to use) are examples of amorphous materials that have both solid and fluid properties. Although imperceptible to the human eye, these blocks of seemingly solid material are slowly moving and changing shape in reaction to the forces placed on them by Brenner’s installations.
The magic of these ever-changing installations highlights that all artistic endeavours are a collaboration between the artists and the materials they choose to work with. This close collaborative relationship with materials continues in her ceramic and glass works. Here she lets go of control of the final outcome, letting chance and the material play an equal part. She applies semi-molten glass to hardwood planks, and a moment of action appears frozen in time as the glass stops dripping. Raku pots bear traces of fire and smoke, and delicate shards of ceramic show traces of nails and wire.
Brenner is currently working towards a practice-led PhD on the corporeal act of making, ie the importance of the artist’s physical body in the creative process. She is investigating this in the light of theories of phenomenology, which views reality as something that can only be understood in terms of how itis perceived by our consciousness, ie all objects and events are mere phenomena of the human brain.
Brenner looks for the beauty in the everyday, the broken, the failed, the ugly, the precarious, the dangerous. She finds joy in the challenge, the problem solving, the touch, the unexpected, and the physical endeavour. Elemental materials and materials used in industry are polished lovingly, handled preciously, melted and re-melted, burnt and re-burnt, stretched, folded, pierced and their stability tampered with and allowed to crack and break.
Brenner is seduced by the materials and the process, and that excitement is embodied in the work she produces.
"Elemental materials and materials used in industry are polished lovingly, handled preciously, melted and re-melted, burnt and re-burnt, stretched, folded, pierced and their stability tampered with and allowed to crack and break." - excerpt from the catalogue. |
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About the Artist
Ruth Brenner is a Scottish sculptor and installation artist living and working in Surrey. After graduating from Newcastle University in 2012 as a Master of Fine Art, she won a Royal Society of Sculptors Bursary Award in 2013. She is currently working on a practice-led PhD combining a study of phenomenology and sculptural practice to research corporeality and the bodily acts of making.
Corporeality is the quality of being or having a material body; therefore Brenner’s work engages with the physical and mental act of making, and with the material exploration in relation to elemental materials, elemental processes and direct engagement with materials. The influences of corporeality are central to her practice as the work has a direct association with her bodily dimensions; physical ability; sensory awareness and her relationship with the material. Making is, therefore, inextricably linked with the outcome, which is a visual record of cognitive processes. When emotion, perception and materials work together, they become one.
In an attempt to close the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Brenner’s work aims to celebrate the immersive experience of using one’s hands to engage with the materials of the world while giving the embodied practice of making a theoretical underpinning.
See more at www.ruthbrenner.co.uk
Corporeality is the quality of being or having a material body; therefore Brenner’s work engages with the physical and mental act of making, and with the material exploration in relation to elemental materials, elemental processes and direct engagement with materials. The influences of corporeality are central to her practice as the work has a direct association with her bodily dimensions; physical ability; sensory awareness and her relationship with the material. Making is, therefore, inextricably linked with the outcome, which is a visual record of cognitive processes. When emotion, perception and materials work together, they become one.
In an attempt to close the gap between the theoretical and the practical, Brenner’s work aims to celebrate the immersive experience of using one’s hands to engage with the materials of the world while giving the embodied practice of making a theoretical underpinning.
See more at www.ruthbrenner.co.uk
About the Curator

Briony Marshall is a London based sculptor and installation artist, Council Member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and Head of Professional Development of The Art Academy. With a background in Biochemistry Briony Marshall is interested in the idea of art practice as research. She fuses an intellectual/conceptual approach with an intuitive, materials inspired process to develop sculptures that investigate the natural world and man’s place in it.
Briony has exhibited widely, has been selected for residencies at Pangolin London and in Pietrasanta Italy, has been named one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ‘175 faces of Chemisty’ and was shortlisted for the prestigious First@108 Public Art Award. In 2018 Briony completed two large scale commissions.The first, Layers of Bournemouth, is a B.E.A.F. and Arts Council funded commission for a rammed earth public artwork on Hengitsbury Head in Bournemouth. Most recently, Briony has been shortlisted for the Leeds feminist public artwork. For it she is now developing a work based on the discoveries and life of the scientist, pacifist and prison reformer Kathleen Lonsdale. This year Briony has not only judged but curated the Sculpture Award Winners exhibition in collaboration with winning artist Ruth Brenner.
See more at www.briony.com.
Briony has exhibited widely, has been selected for residencies at Pangolin London and in Pietrasanta Italy, has been named one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s ‘175 faces of Chemisty’ and was shortlisted for the prestigious First@108 Public Art Award. In 2018 Briony completed two large scale commissions.The first, Layers of Bournemouth, is a B.E.A.F. and Arts Council funded commission for a rammed earth public artwork on Hengitsbury Head in Bournemouth. Most recently, Briony has been shortlisted for the Leeds feminist public artwork. For it she is now developing a work based on the discoveries and life of the scientist, pacifist and prison reformer Kathleen Lonsdale. This year Briony has not only judged but curated the Sculpture Award Winners exhibition in collaboration with winning artist Ruth Brenner.
See more at www.briony.com.