Ever Grainger's extruded silicone artworks investigate an alternative material language of sculpture, working freehand with an adapted extrusion gun, silicone is squeezed, squashed and drawn with, in a process that balances negotiating tool and material led outcomes with intuition and control.
Ever Grainger's extruded silicone artworks investigate an alternative material language of sculpture, working freehand with an adapted extrusion gun, silicone is squeezed, squashed and drawn with, in a process that balances negotiating tool and material led outcomes with intuition and control.
Silicone is favoured by Grainger as a material that whether freshly extruded or fully cured remains in appearance at once liquid and solid, soft and firm. In use, it straddles both drawing and sculpture. Most recently used on canvas to reference the material as paint.
The work is a development of a history of negotiating tool-based aspects of making work. With current computer technology removing the need for any physical interaction, eg. the devising of sculpture from scratch purely within 3D modelling software, Grainger instead returns to more basic level tools where physical overrides, and responsive control in the moment are still possible as a way of attempting to retain contact and negotiate this dilemma.
Her recent work, 'Slabb: Grey' was awarded The Pangolin Digital Sculpture Prize, and will be laser scanned and a 3D digital file created. This will allow for the work to be translated into different materials via 3D printing and potentially casting in bronze, or even scaled dramatically up for a future iteration. Options that will extend the ongoing dialogue of materials, tools and practice methodology.
Ever Grainger (b. UK) blends a playful practice, seriously investigating the formal, material and sensory properties of art making, with a long standing interest in engaging with the spaces, categories and conventions of how we experience and interact with art.
Recent work ‘Slabb: Grey’ was awarded The Pangolin Digital Sculpture Prize’ at the The Royal West of England Academy Open (8 Oct 22- 8 Jan 23). A prize of a digital 3D laser scan of a sculpture that will allow for its reproduction at any scale, in a variety of materials including bronze.
Other group exhibitions in 2022 include The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition; The Royal Society of Sculptors Summer Show; and Wells Art Contemporary. Previous exhibitions include The Gothenburg Museum of Art; Gallery Works Osaka; Occupy my Time, Brick Lane and Shoreditch Town Hall London; Bearspace London, Glasgow International Art Festival and Phoenix Gallery Brighton.
Grainger is graduate of Birmingham School of Art, UCE, (BA Hons, 2003) where work on graduation was selected for New Contemporaries and subsequent residencies were invited for New Art Gallery Walsall and Cultural City Network, Graz.
Ever was elected a member of The Royal Society of Sculptors in 2021.
Note: Ever is pronounced as in 'ever before' etc.
