Helen Sear, Charlotte Hodes and Amanda Benson
Complimenting and celebrating the extraordinary interiors of the newly restored Grade 1 listed Georgian townhouse, The Sherborne, Recurring Intricacies brings together photography, ceramics, papercuts and sculpture made by three female artists: Helen Sear, Charlotte Hodes and Amanda Benson.
The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the ‘recurring intricacies’ of the eighteenth century, celebrating Sherborne House’s fascinating, colourful, cultural and theatrical past.
The Sherborne opened its doors in May 2024 after a meticulous restoration programme. To complement and celebrate the lavishly decorative interiors of this extraordinary philanthropy project, the Sherborne has programmed a series of artistic interventions. This time, it is focusing on women artists who are fascinated by craft. Each artist creates artworks that activate and elicit a range of feelings through our habits of looking.
Speaking of the project, curator Tim Martin said:
“The meticulous restoration of Sherborne House which roots back to the vibrant Georgian heritage now saved for the nation, has inspired the incredible, thoughtful and playful interventions of Helen Sear, Charlotte Hodes and Amanda Benson.
Helen Sear was elected a Royal Academician in 2024, her practice focuses on the co-existence of human, animal, and natural environments. Photography remains a central subject and medium in her work, which often challenges the dominance of the eye and the fixed-point perspective associated with the camera lens.
Charlotte Hodes is a London based artist and Professor of Fine Art whose work profiles her long-standing engagement with the crossovers between the fine and decorative arts, drawing on craft processes to create imagery firmly situated within the language of painting. She brings her experience as a painter to her intricate papercuts, ceramic vases and large-scale installations in which ready-made ceramic ware serves as her alternative canvas.
Similarly, the handmade is integral to the way sculptor Amanda Benson works; with the process of making deliberately evident in her sculptures, which thrive in the use of everyday materials. Her abstract forms create an organic minimalism as she builds obsessive matrices; weaving and reconfiguring, scaffolding space itself, in crazily fractal ascents.”
Recurring Intricacies showcases works from Sear’s ‘Flatbed Rococo’ series, where domestic scans of Bracken become reminiscent of raw silk and reference the asymmetrical decorative scrolls of the Rococo style, alongside ‘Anatomy of a Tree’, a horizontal 4-metre-long image of a fallen tree digitally re-constituted from over 100 photographs, visualising the experience of being present in a landscape that changes perspective at every step, blurring boundaries between subject, senses and environment.
Charlotte Hodes’s long ceramic table installation, ‘Conversations en Plein Air’, presents a playful analogy between French 18th century ‘Fêtes galantes’ paintings, Manet’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe’ and the picnic as a pertinent metaphor for our experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amanda Benson’s ‘Pissenlit 4’ sculpture, feels on the verge of collapse, yet this delicate pink coloured linear form, created from strong geometric open structures, piled and knitted together, echo the intricacies of its surroundings, bringing a playful cohesive whole.
A range of events will support the exhibition, including artist/curator conversations, papercutting, drawing and sculpture workshops, bespoke food and drink popups, and more.
The exhibition runs until 17th August, 2025.
Artwork will be available for purchase through The Sherborne. For further information, please ask our Visitor Hub Team at the reception desk.
