ENDED: Brigitte Jurack: What’s Left Behind
13th November 2021 – 30th January 2022
Brigitte Jurack explores our relationship with animals and their inner lives. Her recent work considers issues around environmental adaptability by focussing on some of the scavengers with whom we share long cultural entanglements, such as crows, foxes and monkeys.
Aesop’s Fables have long fascinated Jurack in her artistic practice through their articulation of hybrid identities and the animal within. At a time when we can no longer deny the devasting effect of human activity on our environment, the ethical dimension of this animal turn and the urgency needed to change takes centre stage.
For this solo show, Jurack presents a series of new works in ceramics, watercolour, drawing and film, and “the focus on foxes, crows and monkeys is a reflection on the edges of society, on the clever scavengers who eke a living from the in-between spaces and leftovers from the rest of life” (Colin M. Simpson, Williamson Art Gallery).
A new colour monograph published by Williamson Art Gallery and Manchester School of Art will be available, with essays by Colin Simpson, Lauren Velvick and Dr Danielle Child.
“These works were begun pre-Covid, with the intricate watercolours and drawings all created within the stillness and silence of lockdowns spent in Alternator Studio and Project space, a converted bakery in Birkenhead and my studio and place of making since 2013.” – Brigitte Jurack
Saturday 13th November 2021 – 30th January 2022
Free entry. Open Wednesday-Thursday 10.30am-5.00pm, Friday 10.30am – 9.00pm (last entry 8.30) and Saturday 10.00am-4.30pm.
About the artist
Brigitte Jurack (Düsseldorf, 1962) studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Glasgow School of Art and Chelsea College of Art, London. She looks at the world as it is and tries to make sense of it; her process can be described as picking up what is already out there. Jurack has exhibited at IMMA (Ireland), European Ceramic Work Centre (Netherlands) and World Water Conference (Japan). She was the 1993 Henry Moore Sculpture Fellow, 2014 Liverpool Art Prize nominee and was selected for the 2019 Korean International Ceramic Biennial. See www.brigittejurack.de
She is Head of Sculpture at Manchester School of Art and her studio is in the converted 19th century bakery in Birkenhead from where she runs Alternator Studio and Project Space, including its acclaimed Translating the Street series of micro-residencies including Harold Offeh, Haleh Jamali, Jeff Young and Casey Orr. She is also a co-founder of artists’ group Foreign Investment who have exhibited in Rio de Janeiro, Kiev, Hong Kong, Oslo, Berlin and the Istanbul and Venice Biennials. See www.foreign-investments.com.
Watch Concentration and What is Left Behind, two film works commissioned by Williamson Art Gallery & Museum by Brigitte Jurack.
Instagram: @brigittejurack
