the Artist

Visual artist, born Belfast, 1986
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design 2004 – 2008

Lauren Gault considers the political and ethical implications of our interactions with matter and the environment. Her work evokes intangible encounters with non-human experiences of time, space and physicality. In her sculptures, materials as diverse as silicone rubber, blown glass, pumped air, stitched suede, water or agricultural milk powder are subject to change through actions and physical processes that often involve pressure, tension and release. Exploring the transitions between different states of matter and scales of experience, Lauren’s work creates a space for objects to communicate and resonate with one another.

GAsworks, SOuth London, 23 jan – 22 march 2020

 CITHRA, 2020 – Installation View

Experimenting with unorthodox techniques and manufacturing processes, her work explores the often imperceptible changes that occur all around us, from microscopic events to geological time-scales, and confronts the ethical, political and emotional implications of human interactions with the environment.

In Gault’s sculptures, diverse materials are transformed through processes that involve pressure, tension and release. Her work evokes fleeting encounters between radically different materialities and opens up a space for objects to communicate and resonate with one another.

The exhibition follows on from Gault’s residency at Gasworks during the spring of 2019, in which the artist researched the writings of Irish-born female explorer, inventor and self-educated scientist Martha Craig (born 1866), digging into the manuscripts and rare editions of her visionary lectures on physics. A relative of the artist, Martha Craig published a forgotten science-fiction novel, The Men of Mars in 1907, under a mysterious pen name, ‘Mithra’. This became the point of departure for Gault’s exhibition, C I T H R A —its title an allusion to the early Zoroastrian term for ‘seed’, ‘species’ and ‘livestock’.

Intimately bound to the artist’s rural upbringing in Northern Ireland, Gault’s new body of work reflects on the changing shape of agriculture, considering the close interdependencies between wildness and domestication.

Materials & Mediums used in the exhibition (from Gasworks CITHRA press release) :

• Lycra
• Metal
• Colostrum milk powder
• Bolus gun
• Bolus ‘digested’ in human stomach pH acid
• Jesmonite
• Blown glass
• Solid glass
• Distilled water
• Horn
• Polished horn (Lanthorne)
• Silica
• Eaten strawberries
• Acrylic
• Water
• Cast 3D scan of Auroch hoof-print found on beach
• Agriculture lime capable of changing pH levels of soil
• Calcium chloride
• Sound

the experience

I actually had a chance to see this in exhibition in February at the Gasworks. The front desk attendant was lovely and gave us a brief explanation of the exhibition and a tour. One thing I remember her saying that was interesting to me was that the work is heavily research-based and the unconventional experimentation of different materials that are involved. I like how the work involves a lot of research and thus results in every form and material to hold meaning and context. The wide ranging collection of different and diverse materials and objects used creates a space for objects to communicate and resonate with each other.

I also enjoyed the second gallery room, where a series of vacuum-formed crystal-clear acrylic water tanks take the entire space of the ceiling and refracts the lighting, to recreate a natural occurrence. The lady explained that the gallery had to accommodate this work and completely re-built the ceiling, which I can imagine to be an extensive job for the gallery for a temporary exhibition. However, it worked very well and it’s impressive to see a non-profit art organisation so accommodating.

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