Thomas Dane Gallery presents an exhibition with Dame Magdalene Odundo (b.1950, Nairobi, Kenya) at No. 3 Duke Street, St James’s. Presenting a series of her unique sculptural clay vessels, this will be Odundo’s first solo exhibition in London in over two decades.
Known for her refined forms and profound understanding of clay’s universal capacity for material storytelling, Odundo draws influence from a broad compass of historical and contemporary making practices. Her work embodies her research into traditional techniques and vernacular ceramic traditions across the world, exploring diasporic identity and recognising the power of objects as repositories of intercultural meaning. Odundo’s vessels are informed by references as diverse as British studio pottery, ancient ceramics, traditional ceremonial vessels from Kenya and Nigeria, and modernist sculpture.
Following a solo show at Houghton Hall earlier this year, this exhibition will present recent hand-built works carefully made over the course of several months. Often anthropomorphic in their references to the female body, Odundo’s vessels strike a balance between the physical and the spiritual; between strength and fragility; between permanence and ephemerality. Finding equal inspiration in manmade objects and the natural world, Odundo’s expressive and deeply resonant ceramics offer a striking formal synthesis of the organic and the crafted, the elemental and the refined.
Lead image: Magdalene Odundo, Untitled Vessel, Symmetrical Series, 2020 © Magdalene A.N. Odundo. Photo: Richard Ivey.
| Duration | 09 October 2024 - 14 December 2024 |
| Times | Tuesday to Friday 11am-6pm Saturday 12pm-6pm |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Thomas Dane Gallery |
| Address | 3 & 11 Duke Street St James's, London, SW1Y 6BN |
| Contact | / info@thomasdane.com / www.thomasdane.com |