Antimonumental is an exhibition of new and recent sculptures made by eleven artists living and working across the UK that engages with notions of fallibility, precarity and ephemerality in our time of global climate catastrophe.

Antimonumental takes cues from the 2008 exhibition Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century (New Museum, New York) that focused on a specific form of contemporary sculpture that ‘displayed a distinct informality: conversational, provisional, at times even corroded and corrupted, they are un- heroic and manifestly unmonumental’. Sixteen years later this attitude towards materiality and making sculpture seems even more critical in a time of economic precarity and environmental uncertainty.

Antimonumental showcases a range of artistic practices operating within a sculptural framework that question diverse subjects and pertinent themes including contested statues, colonialism, migration, junk space, domestic violence, politics of memory, becoming other, structures of power, post-human futures, ambivalence and much between.

Visitors to the exhibition can expect to experience a dynamic exhibition of sculpture including site-specific works, made during a short residency period, that engage directly with the unique architecture of the spacious gallery. On site constructions will include Erika Trotzig’s teetering structures of foam and wood, Cecile Johnson Soliz’s twisted newsprint composition moving across the wall, Donna Mitchell’s improvised construction that relocates materials collected at a tin mine waste dump into Thames-Side Studios Gallery.

As a newly formed collective assembled by artist Kate McLeod, a critical conversation is emerging between these antimonumental artists who find a shared voice and attitude in producing and presenting sculptures that rejoice in mutability, modularity, awkward relationships, ready-mades, absurdity, futility, failure, gesture, reclaiming, re-appropriating, reusing, repurposing, wobbly eruptions, things cobbled together, erasure.

All the sculptures presented in Antimonumental embody notions of fallibility, yet however tremulous these objects appear on the surface they also belie a resilience and resistance that demand a reinvestment and investigation into objects that already exist in the world today.


About the artists:
Madi Acharya-Baskerville is a London based South Asian artist. She graduated with an MA in Fine Art at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘I Dream a Palace’ at the Lightbox, Woking (2024) and ‘Caught in the Act’ at Royal Society of Sculptors, London (2024). She won the First Plinth Public Art Award, Royal Society of Sculptors (2023) and has recently completed her first Public Art Commission ‘The Double Act’ which was recently displayed at the Royal Society of Sculptors, Sculpture Terrace and is currently on show at The Art House, Wakefield. www.madiacharya-baskerville.org

Cecile Johnson Soliz is a second generation American of Bolivian heritage who grew up in California, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, Ghana and Italy before arriving to the U.K. to study fine art at Cardiff College of Art and Goldsmiths. Following 20 years in London, the Henry Moore Fellowship in Sculpture brought her to Cardiff in 1995 from where she has exhibited in the U.K. and abroad in both solo and group exhibitions, winning the Gold Medal in Fine Art at the National Eisteddfod, Wales in 2017. Cecile lives and works in Cardiff and is currently collaborating with the National Dance Company of Wales. www.cecilejohnsonsoliz.net @cecilejohnsonsoliz

David Kefford is a multi-disciplinary artist. He lives and works in Cambridge, UK. His work has been extensively exhibited and commissioned in the UK and internationally in both Solo and Group exhibitions alongside inclusion in Biennials, Festivals and Public Art contexts. Kefford has been awarded numerous Grants and Awards, including a recent Develop Your Creative Practice Grant from Arts Council England, a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award, an Escalator Visual Arts Award and the Roy Noakes Bursary Prize at the Royal British Society of Sculptors. His work is held in several Public and Private collections. www.davidkefford.com @davidkefford

Sandra Lane is a London based artist who was a journalist and then a photographer before graduating as a mature student from MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Art in 2017 and a BA in Fine Art Drawing from Camberwell in 2013 where she received the Camberwell./Acme studio award followed by her first solo show. Sandra regularly shows her work and collaborates with other artists. She has work in Marcelle Joseph’s Girl Power Collection which was recently on show in Contested Bodies at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds University. Her Courgette Shoes were in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022. Sandra recently spoke at Clay in Conversation a series of talks on ceramic practice curated by Julia Lancaster at Westminister University. She is also co-curator of Clements & Co Gallery, an old shop window space in South London. www.sandra-lane.com @artysandralane

Eugene Macki lives and works in both the UK and the United States. He has participated in numerous residencies and fellowship programs. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (USA) and completed his Master's in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts in London (UK). He has exhibited his work with James Cohan Gallery at the Campus (USA); National Liberty Museum, Pennsylvania (USA); The Salisbury Museum (UK); The Royal Academy of Arts (UK); GroundWork Gallery (UK); Aspex Gallery (UK); 20-21 Visual Arts Centre (UK) and performed at Socrates Sculpture Park in New York among others. www.eugenemacki.com

Kate McLeod lives and works in Dundee, Scotland. She attended Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Fine Art. In between studying she worked for Anthony Caro at his studio in London. She has exhibited at The Royal Scottish Academy; The Royal Society of Sculptors, London; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland; JGM Gallery, London; Andipa Gallery, London; Post Box Gallery, London; ME108, Lisbon. Residencies include CoLab, London; Brian Mercer Bronze Residency, Pietrasanta, Italy; University of Worcester; Merz Barn, Littoral Arts Trust, Ambleside. She is a researcher and lecturer in Contemporary Art Practice and a specialist in Sculpture at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. www.dundee.ac.uk/people/kate-mcleod @kate_e_mcleod

Donna Mitchell is a sculptor whose practice focuses on building self-directed, site responsive residencies using found and scavenged material. Her works are often built as a series of shifting parts, temporarily reconfigured on location in the landscape. Recent exhibitions include ‘The Waste Makers of Cornucopia Street’ at the Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins, Newhaven Art Space and the Winchester Gallery. In 2022 she completed the CAMP/KARST/PCA Studio Residency at KARST in Plymouth, which culminated in a solo show. donnamitchell.co.uk

John Plowman currently living in Norfolk, has exhibited in and curated one person and group exhibitions in this country and abroad. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘John Plowman:Sculptor’ Black Barn Contemporary, Cockley Cley, UK, 2023 ‘Collab Project’ BoXo Projects, Joshua Tree, California, USA, 2018 ‘Drawing After The (F)act’, Salzamt Project Space, Linz, Austria 2015. From 2004–16 Beacon Art Project, his curatorial project, worked regionally, nationally and internationally curating and commissioning artworks from over 70 artists providing opportunities for people to experience contemporary visual art in non-gallery spaces, usually heritage sites. www.johnplowmanstudio.com www.beaconartproject.org www.thegrangeprojects.org

lrina Razumovskaya is an internationally acclaimed London-based artist whose practice is grounded in ceramics. After completing her BA and MFA from the Saint Petersburg State Academy of Art, she received an MA in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art where she currently works as a tutor. Irina regularly shows her work in solo and group exhibitions in the U.K. and internationally. She has been awarded multiple grants and awards, including the First Prize in the Westerwald Museum (Germany) in 2024. In previous years she received first prizes in Carter Preston Prize (Bluecoat Centre), d’Esplugues Ceramic Biennial (Spain) and Cluj Ceramic Competition. Her sculptures are in public museum collections, including, Chatsworth House in the UK, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art in Japan, the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan, the lcheon World Ceramic Center GICB in Korea and Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon. irinaraz.com @irina.r.art

Si Sapsford lives and works in the UK. She travelled extensively as a professional long-distance sailor and later worked on the Kuwait War Firefighting Rebuild, before graduating from Chelsea College of Art, and the Royal College of Art. Exhibitions, Residences and Awards, include BP Travel Award, National Portrait Gallery, Battersea Park Annual Sculpture Award, Royal Academy, Zabludowcicz Collection, Compton Verney, Sheffield Gallery and Museum Trust, Trinity Buoy Wharf, Lynden Gallery, Melbourne and Domestic Affairs, Rio de Janeiro. She has contributed to publications such as MASS and Turps, art magazines. www.sisapsford.com @sisapsford

Erika Trotzig is Swedish artist based in London, working in sculpture. She is a graduate from BA Fashion and MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. She has exhibited widely: highlights include solo shows at The Stone Space and BOTH Gallery in London 2023, and duo shows at Fold Gallery (2023), London, and Gigi Rigliaco Gallery, Italy (2024). Notable group shows include at the Croatian pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2024), The Royal Society of Sculptors (2024) and The Bomb Factory Art Foundation (2023). Upcoming shows include a group show at La Bibi Gallery, Mallorca and a duo show at Himmelsberga Museum in Sweden in 2025. She was awarded the Gilbert Bayes Award for sculpture from the Royal Society of Sculptors in 2023 and is shortlisted for the Cass Art Prize 2024. Erika has a background in fashion design and had her own clothing label for ten years. She showed at London and Paris Fashion Weeks and sold in stores across Europe, US, and Asia. Erika is associate lecturer on BA Fashion and MA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. erikatrotzig.com


Thames-Side Studios Gallery
Thames-Side Studios
Harrington Way, Warspite Road
Royal Borough of Greenwich
London SE18 5NR

Open Thursday-Sunday, 12-5pm, during exhibitions.

For general Thames-Side Studios Gallery enquiries please email [email protected]