Exquisite corpse: a masterclass with Cathie Pilkington RA
Two-day masterclass and practical workshop
8 April 2017 10.30am - 5.30pm9 April 2017 10.30am - 5.30pm
The Life Room, RA Schools, Piccadilly
£580. Includes all materials, lunch and wine reception at the end of the second day.
Terms and conditions
Award-winning sculptor, figurative artist and Royal Academician Cathie Pilkington leads this exclusive weekend masterclass, inviting participants to use independent and collective practices to produce drawings, collage and finally sculpture.
“The female body is like an endless sentence that invites us to rearrange it, so that its real meaning becomes clear through a series of endless anagrams…..
……What is at stake here is a totally new unity of form, meaning and feeling: language-images that cannot simply be thought up or written up … They constitute new, multifaceted objects, resembling polyplanes made of mirrors … As if the illogical was relaxation, as if laughter was permitted while thinking, as if error was a way and chance, a proof of eternity.”
Hans Bellmer
Re-appropriating the doll as a post-sculptural device while questioning the ancient figurative tradition in art, Cathie Pilkington’s haunting images and sculptural installations merge the commonplace with the fantastical, the surreal with the familiar. Assemblages of awkwardly mis-matched parts, Pilkington’s work explores the notion and experience of the “self” and the possible existence of multiple identities which are, at times, only precariously held together. Pilkington’s previous work has explored the female experience and image, referencing the grand sculptural cannons of nudes and goddesses and juxtaposing them with domestic objects of toys, ornaments and dummies.
Most recently, Pilkington has created a remarkable series of responses to Degas’ small wax sculptures of dancers, overwriting their voyeuristic naturalism with re-imagined distortion of form. These sculpted ‘dollies’ simultaneously revel in their beauty and strangeness with two-faced heads, impossible anatomies and receptive blankness.
Working in the context of the RA’s Life Room and all the history it evokes, Pilkington’s upcoming installation Life Room: Anatomy of a Doll explores the notion of a busy, inhabited space. There's a ‘work-in-progress’ nature to the room, with groups of figurative sculptures in various stages of completion and resolution positioned on modelling stands, accompanied by other large dummy-like figures, body fragments and studio equipment.
Over the course of an intensive two-day masterclass, course participants will work within and alongside this installation, a part of it in both space and time. Through their own work, group interaction and discussion and feedback from Pilkington, course participants will explore questions that are raised by her artwork including: a conversation about the problems of figuration in sculpture, the practical and psychological uses of the life model and the role of the statue, the dummy and the doll in visual culture.
Working in situ with Pilkinton’s installation, as well as from life models carefully positioned within the Life Room, Pilkington will lead a uniquely immersive weekend-long practical masterclass. Participants will be encouraged to explore and work with drawing and collage and finally create their own unique sculpture.
Pilkington will introduce her own version of the “Exquisite Corpse” game – a technique used by Surrealist artists to stimulate creativity, innovation and unexpected outcomes through a game of chance. Participants will be asked to reflect upon and challenge their existing pre-conceptions, and work both independently and collaboratively over the two days. This promises to be a truly unique and enriching creative experience.
"I work with lots of different materials and use lots of different processes simultaneously. The work and ideas evolve through the making process so I am interested in what the work does at different stages of its making. I satisfy my desire to make lots of different kinds of work by consciously making some highly finished and others much more provisional and immediate. When something is finished it ‘settles’ in the room."
Cathie Pilkington RA, 2016
£580. Includes all materials, lunch and wine reception at the end of the second day.
Terms and conditions
About the course
In this intensive two-day course, participants will be fully immersed in the work of Royal Academician Cathie Pilkington. Working directly from the installed objects inhabiting the RA's Life Room as part of Cathie's upcoming installation Life Room: Anatomy of a Doll, as well as from life models, participants will create artworks that incorporate drawing, collage and sculpture.
Day one will involve the group exploring ideas collectively through drawing and collage, moving on to participants producing a clay figurine or bust built on a wire armature on the second day, using some of the strategies discussed on day one.
This masterclass is supported by demonstrations and illustrations as well as course materials developed by Cathie.
Participants must be willing to work both individually and collaboratively.
This course is for you if:
• You are a sculptor/artist with a desire to learn new techniques
• You are prepared to work collaboratively and follow specific rules and guidance from Cathie Pilkington RA to produce unique and surprising results
• You would like the opportunity to work with a renowned artist, within the historic setting of the RA's Life Room, in amongst Cathie Pilkington's sculptures
Minimum age 18
The number of participants is strictly limited in order to enable detailed, individual feedback for each participant from the course tutor.
£580
Saturday 8 – Sunday 9 April 2017
Day 1: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Day 2: 10.30am – 5.30pm
Includes:
• An introduction to Royal Academician Cathie Pilkington, her artworks, her role in the Royal Academy and the international art world
• All specialist, practical art materials
• Course learning materials and hand-outs developed by Cathie Pilkington RA
• Lunch and refreshments served on both days
• A drinks reception in the recently opened private members' club, The Academician’s Room, on completion of the course.
• A certificate of participation upon course completion
About the tutor
Cathie Pilkington RA
Cathie Pilkington RA is a London-based sculptor and a figurative artist, renowned for crafting increasingly ambivalent forms. Her sculptural practice combines the interrelated and antagonistic worlds of fine art and craft. She carefully creates pieces from a vast array of materials, adopting ready-made elements, which are freely assembled, as well as incorporating modelling, carving, painting and other finishes to her works. Her sculptures often take on doll-like forms which approach the immediacy of ordinary figurative playthings, and thereby challenge the art-world’s customary and mediated relationship between the viewer and the artwork.
Two of Pilkington’s painted bronzes, Reclining Doll and Twinkle, were selected for the RA’s Summer Exhibition 2014. Her Reclining Doll sculpture was awarded the Sunny Dupree Family Award for Female Artist at the Summer Exhibition this year.
Pilkington studied BA Silversmithing at Edinburgh College of Art (1985–91) and was awarded the first John Watson Prize for Art upon graduating in 1991, with a show at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. She went on to study Sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1995–97) following which she was awarded the Cheltenham Fine Art Fellowship in 1998. Pilkington has previously showed with Bruton Gallery, Bath (1992) and was in the 1st RWA Open Sculpture Exhibition (1993). She is currently represented by Marlborough Fine Art, where she had solo shows in 2007, 2010 and 2014. She also recently had an exhibition, The Value of the Paw, at the V&A Museum of Childhood in 2012. Her work is held in the collections of the Deste Foundation, Athens, Manchester City Art Gallery and the David Roberts Collection.
Read more about Cathie Pilkington, and see a gallery of her works
Our courses and classes programme
Our programme of short courses and classes offers the opportunity to explore a range of subjects, led by expert tutors and practising artists.
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