A scalpel in one hand, foam in the other, Charlotte Kingsnorth admits her mind does present an image of Frankenstein and Doctor Waldman. A metamorphosis is in progress, while sculpting foam, some thing comes alive. Was it the kink in the leg? The suggestion of an ear? The artist does not overthink it, each work is an exploration of a moment.
Lawerence Weiner said art is “where you try to do that funny thing where you don’t want to fuck up somebody’s day on their way to work, you want to fuck up their whole life.” Charlotte Kingsnorth invites you to question reality as you know it. Addressing a present moment rife with simulations, the artist presents functional objects in visible states of metamorphosis. These are not simply perversions of identity but open questions.
Led by instinct, Kingsnorth deepens the techniques she has come to be known for, salvaging and restoring pre-existing furniture frames; an act of intervention, sans the divinity. In forming new lives for past objects, the artist explores the terrain of a hyperreality.
Sculpted biomorphic forms adorn previously discarded frames in her inimitable process of ‘character building’. Aside from toying with the haptic senses, modern consumption is called into examination. Does it look familiar? Not simply a lamp having an identity crisis, Don’t Pet the Lamp is a contemplation of identity’s malleable nature.
The reuse of old things is a recognition of an ethereal quality reserved for objects with a previous life, embodying a value unique to humans. Another layer. Like the eyes of a painting following you around the room, discomfort is not the goal but a byproduct of the uncanny. For the sake of comparison, Animalistic Tendencies offers a marriage of human, animal, other, use it as mirror, map, desk but whatever you do don’t forget to feed it.
“I was influenced by figurative painters such as Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud describing their paint as body matter – I too felt this but with upholstery”.
Charlotte Kingsnorth cuts through traditional craft techniques and hacks into industrial processes to realize an individual art form, producing works that reflect on contemporary culture. Her work welds functionality with sculpture, where pre-existing chair frames are inflated with alter egos with a nod to the zeitgeist of the period they were made. The psychological and physical connection between people and objects feeds into her work, questioning interpreted beauty and the accepted archetype of an object.
Kingsnorth is a graduate of the Royal College of Art’s design products programme and runs a London-based practice, working with private clients, galleries, brands and global institutions, including The Bill Gates Foundation, ASAP Rocky, Fendi, ByFar, SHOWstudio, Saatchi, Christies, The Crafts Council, The V&A, Holon Design Museum in Israel, the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. She has shown in design fairs at Nomad in Monaco, St. Moritz and Capri, Design Miami, New York, London, Paris and Milan, and has works in the permanent collection at Turkey’s Odunpazari Modern Museum.
