WEST BRETTON, UK.- .- Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents Sarah Staton - Shucks, Sucks, Sticks, St, on view through September 28, 2008. Sarah Staton is fascinated by construction processes, and her work investigates form, function and feeling through a series of architectural and sculptural interventions. She makes richly layered assemblages of found and made objects that explore relationships between art and its contexts: social, physical, historical or political.
Staton's sculptures are immediately recognisable as they reflect British domestic interiors and objects, however by manipulating their scale, juxtaposition and colour, and causing functional objects to become dysfunctional, her dismembered tables, stacked sculptures, altered plinths and approximate topiaries become wonderful, fantasy hybrid forms. Staton considers and plays with ideas of taste, fashion, class and ideals of modernism and in so doing retells the modernist legacy.
This exhibition of new work in wood includes stacked sculpture, slotted sculpture and pieces made using old and new commercial technologies. A beautiful selection of paintings reveal her ability to move fluidly between two and three dimensions. Wooden 'topiary' sculptures, which the artist has developed from sketches of informal topiary made by roadside gardeners in Brazil, will be shown in the open air.
Often working across disciplines, Staton has been involved in projects with fashion designers, furniture designers, architects, and cultural critics. This exhibition follows her 2007 commission to produce a range of products for YSP, celebrating the Park's thirtieth anniversary.
As part of a major symposium organised in collaboration with York St John University, Staton will lead twelve students chosen by an international competition to design and create seating for the open air at YSP.
A publication with text by the Guardian critic Adrian Searle and curator Clare Lilley, accompanies the exhibition.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, near Wakefield, is an independent art gallery, accredited museum and registered charity. Registered charity number 1067908. Yorkshire Sculpture Park receives funding from: Arts Council England, Wakefield MDC, The Henry Moore Foundation and West Yorkshire Grants (a joint committee of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield Councils). www.ysp.co.uk
Sarah Staton was born in London in 1961, and graduated from St Martins School of Art in 1988. She now lives and works in London and Sheffield and has hadsolo exhibitions in London, Sheffield, Berlin and New York. Staton was awarded a two year Henry Moore Fellowship at Sheffield Hallam University in 2002, and this year was the joint winner of The Arts Foundation prize for sculpture in wood. Her work is featured in a display curated by Tony Cragg for the Royal Academy's 2008 Summer Exhibition.
