- Artists
Featuring Maria’s series of works on paper, the exhibition includes: somewhere (2020) and episode(s) (2022). The showcase explores Maria’s utilisation of material and language to create delicate works that respond to ideas around correspondence, communication and the residues they create. Employing what can often be viewed as mundane objects such as water, ink and paper, Maria’s experimentations are an indication of her practice to date. Untitled reveals Maria’s interest in materiality and resonates with the surroundings of the Stuart Hall library, where transmissions between people and objects are encouraged, more specifically paper. There is also the opportunity to delve further into Maria’s process through the exploration of books that inspire her own practice.
Hollie Douglas, Future Collect Curatorial Trainee said, “This exhibition gives insight into the excavations and processes by which Maria works with simple materials, and the relationship she draws between them. At the heart of this work lies the communication between the materials, the space that is left when they correspond, which Maria seizes as the point of inception for her works. The exhibition invites the audience to pause and reflect – from which point we may interrogate the silences that are present in the space.”
Maria Amidu commented “I have decided to install two works in progress for this index show – episode(s) and somewhere. Both pieces are exploring the role writing plays in emotional expression. I am preoccupied with what the apparatus for writing – paper, pigment, print – can afford, how their material properties contribute to the affect of what is being said. episode(s) is the beginnings of a new immersive installation idea in which an audience is confronted with the dilemma and impact of speaking up or staying silent. somewhere is an experimental work about the troublesome, contingent and precarious nature of ‘being from elsewhere’.”
The exhibition at Stuart Hall Library runs until 28th April 2023, and is supported by Freelands Foundation and Arts Council England. New work by Maria will also be on show in her first solo exhibition, living in fear of quicksand, at the Nunnery, Bow Arts and Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives from 3rd March – 21st May 2023.
About the artist
Maria Amidu’s artistic concerns are influenced by the complexities of the relational – between people, and between people and place. Through writing, printmaking, artist’s books, audio visual works and sometimes glassmaking she tries to substantiate what might be going on in collective situations, paying specific attention to what is hidden, obscured or unspoken.
The artist has developed projects with museums, galleries and other cultural organisations including: Watermarks (2021), Metal Culture; “Where are we?” (2020) Mid-Sussex, District Council; edge/threshold/brink (2018), Nuit Blanche Toronto; Act, Campaign, Petition, Reform, Lobby, Argue and Soit droit fait come est desire (Let it be done as it is desired) (2015); Houses of Parliament; Workforce (a work in progress) (2014), National Maritime Museum; a moment of your time (2013), People United in association with Turner Contemporary; Betty, Pat, Diane, Ivy, Lynette, Bonney (2011), Parramatta Artists’ Studios; Dolphin Loves Disco (and other favourite words) (2012), PEER; 21st Century Reporter (2005), Foundling Museum; Tribute (2002), Arnolfini and Bristol Royal Children’s Hospital; Finders, Keepers (2001), Horniman Museum & Gardens; and …a moment caught in three dimension(s) (1999), 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning. Her work is in several public and private collections including the Parliamentary Archives (UK), V&A, Arnolfini Collection Trust, and Limerick National Drawing Collection.
Maria studied glass and ceramics at West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham and the Royal College of Art, London. She is currently undertaking doctoral research in the School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art and the title of her project is Making that remembers: a correspondence between emotion and material.
Image: episode(s) (2022) by Maria Amidu