Details
Ceramic and steel
H. 23 x w. 23 x d. 6 cm
Holes to rear for wall hanging.
About Nina Gerada
Nina Gerada’s work remembers archaeological digs, maps, empty swimming pools, the female form, bricks, blueprints, typesetting blocks, the home, the temple. Her process begins by carving and tearing the clay, exposing fault lines, adding insertions. These broad actions are combined with bold but intricately tooled forms that skirt close to figurative imaginings of the megalithic temples of her homeland.
Still unfired, Gerada slices her tightly evocative sculptures into smaller sections. The pieces are contemplatively recomposed, searching for patterns and connections across multiple scales. Spaces are uncovered, providing at once protection and a means of escape. Courtyards, rooms and tombs appear as reflections of women’s bodies, wombs, breasts and vulvas. Totemic symbols intertwining notions of women as life giving vessels, of mothering and the psychological theories of containment, the impulse to be embedded in the rock, and a yearning for community and connectedness.
Firing clay exacts irreversible molecular change - ceramics are the imposition of human agency on geological time. Honouring this; Gerada’s recent work is often intentionally cracked in the kiln, reminding us of weathered buildings and ageing skin. This stochastic movement makes connections between timescales: The artist and her life story. Her audience and its prehistory.
Biography
Nina Gerada is a sculptor who lives and works in London and Malta. Born in Malta in 1983, from an early age she had a rigorous and traditional training in art. She moved to London in 2002 where she studied Art, Design and Architecture. She is a graduate of London Metropolitan University (2011), The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (2006), Chelsea College of Art (2003) and is a Higher Education Teaching Fellow (2018). Her career has spanned different fields and she has worked at a multitude of scales; including Production Design, Urban Design, Architecture and Map Making before focussing on sculpture.
Gerada’s sculptures merge figurative and architectural motifs, exploring the interconnectedness between buildings, communities and people. References to the Neolithic statues, temples and artefacts of Malta appear in her work, exploring the female, immigrant and post-colonial experience. Her training in architecture and urban design are evident in the vast scales and spatial preoccupation of her work.
Gerada has recently exhibited at The Malta Society of Arts. She participated in the inaugural Malta Art Biennale in 2024. She was selected to exhibit at ‘Fresh’, at the British Ceramics Biennial 2023 and at ‘Collect’ with Thrown Contemporary at Somerset House, London (2023, 2022). Other exhibitions of note include Debut, &Gallery, Edinburgh (2024), The Middle Room, LA (2024), London Craft Week (2021) and The Daphne Festival, London (2022).
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