Press Release

Isobel Church

Many Moons

Inauguration: Wednesday, 20 September 2017, 6.30 – 8.30pm

21 September - 28 October 2017

Montoro12 Contemporary Art is proud to present Many Moons, the first solo exhibition of British artist Isobel Church in Italy. The exhibition title refers not only to the recent scientific theory called “Many Moons Theory,” which suggests that our moon was originally formed by a series of amalgamations of smaller moonlets in a series of collisions, eventually merging into a single large lunar mass; “Many Moons” also refers to the moon’s long history as a real and metaphorical marker of time, as in the expression “many moons ago.”

Isobel Church works conceptually across a range of disciplines, including installation, ceramics, bronze, found objects and paper casting. “Many Moons” presents a multi-disciplinary collection of works concerned with the hypnotic aspects of discovery and the notion of the sacred, ranging from installations like Strange Contents, a mandala occupying much of the front room and Nine Worthies, which takes up the entire back room to works on paper and sculptures spread along and on the walls, most of them specifically made for this exhibition.

Strange Contents (2016/2017) shows the form of a large mandala made of meteorite shavings created by the artist in situ. While traditionally mandalas in Tibetan Buddhist practice are created with sand and ceremonially swept away to illustrate the transitory nature of material life, here the metallic meteorite shaving create a raised gunpowder-like trail following the geometric structure, symbolizing the four directions and the circles of heaven. Ex Nihilo is a series of three black stoneware jars impressed with a list of named black holes translated into binary code. The form of the jars is reminiscent of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ urns. Also included in the exhibition are a series of hand-made paper reliefs with meteorological images taken from NASA imagery of hurricane Iselle as well as of the Valles Marineris on Mars and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Looking at humanity’s complex and symbolic relationship to natural phenomena and the unseen, Church’s work can be read as fictitious ceremonial works, linking material and immaterial worlds.

Isobel Church (b. 1984) lives and works in London. In 2014 she received her Master’s degree in Ceramics and Glass with distinction from the Royal College of Art. She graduated in Anthropology and Psychology (BA) and Chinese Art History and worked for the Percival David Collection at the British Museum in London. In 2016 the artist was selected to become an official member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in London. Her recent exhibitions include: Brink Launch Exhibition, Marylebone, London, 2017; Three100, Second Floor Studios, London 2016; Platform, Leyden Gallery, London, 2016; Ode to Erin, Town House, Spitalfields, 2016; Monochrome, Musgrove Gallery, Taunton, 2016; AAF, Hampstead, London, 2016; Imago Mundi, Luciano Benetton Collection, 2016; Quartz, Somerset, 2015; Arte Laguna Prize, Arsenale, Venice, 2015.