In The Round

Unit London is excited to present its first group exhibition dedicated solely to visual art in three dimensions. In The Round places the mediums of sculpture and ceramics at centre stage, drawing on a vast global and cross-cultural history. Human beings have crafted sculptural objects for many millennia, and these objects have come to slip between practical, domestic, religious, cultural and artistic definitions. The exhibition aims to showcase these diverse sculptural mediums, which have perhaps played a secondary role to works on canvas in the contemporary artworld.

In The Round decisively brings sculpture to the fore, championing the physicality of the medium and demonstrating its continuing pertinence for modern audiences. In this sense, In The Round celebrates the fluidity of sculpture and ceramics. The exhibition questions the rigidity of past canonical sculptural parameters by emphasising the freedom of process and material that three-dimensions can allow. In The Round strives to chart the flexibility of sculptural materials that can metamorphose from something tactile and malleable into something durable and solid, while still maintaining a sense of movement and mutability.

In the Round therefore displays a fluctuating interplay between abstract forms and representations of the everyday. Artists like Jiha Moon and Anne Marie Laureys teeter on this boundary; their works flow between organic yet unfamiliar forms. A specific language cannot be deciphered, but identifiable and abstract elements intertwine to induce an uncanny sense of recognition. Similarly, Henry & Richard Hudson and Saskia Fleishman engage with traditional forms of pottery. Their colourful vase-like pieces hover on the edge between familiar and unfamiliar, experimenting with the distinctions between practicality and art object. Equally, artists such as Stacey Gillian Abe, Paa Joe and Alma Berrow present us with reproductions of everyday objects, things that we think we know well. However, these objects mutate through their new medium, which transforms their purpose and, in turn, toys with our sensory experiences of sight and touch. Throughout the exhibition, we ask ourselves, can we really reach out to touch these objects? Do our eyes deceive us?

Ultimately, these works probe our perceptions of reality and our relationship to meaning itself often by employing humour, playfulness and experimentation. Sculpture is unique in its ability to provide a truly collaborative experience between viewer and art object; viewers are able to circumnavigate each piece. In this way, In The Round, conjures notions of performance and communication, understanding the physical and almost theatrical nature of sculpture as a medium. The works on display seek to convey how three-dimensional artworks engage with our senses on the most profound level, poignantly circumventing artistic tropes in order to deal with contemporary issues, ideas and experiences.