"Being": Selected Sculptures by Ted Fullerton

• Sat Sep 25 - Sun Aug 28

Throughout the grounds.

Being, a stunning showcase of large-scale figurative works, is set against the backdrop of the Alton Mill’s varied landscape.

Ted Fullerton is an artist intrigued by dualisms – by the systems we use to define our human experience (and the lore we construct to make sense of it). His work weaves together a fascination with myth and pure physicality: he explores opposition, contrast and paradox, folding the delicate narratives of humanist inquiry into the incredible weight of his sculpted figures.

Throughout Being he uses the figure as a rich palette for symbolic play. These are dense, static bodies, very much alive in texture; there is, at times, a buoyancy in their physical heaviness — in the nuances of the commentary they bear and in the ability of some to exist suspended in air.

It is on the body that Fullerton investigates the social concepts that lace it: he manipulates gender identity, turning assumptions about strength and vulnerability (literally) on their head. It is with the sparing application of colour that he infers the possibility of regeneration or communicates our simultaneous capacity for “love and aggression.”

Works like Knuckle Dragger (2010) and Achilles (2003) call attention to cycles of human “folly” — our refusal “to learn from our past” — while Squaring the Circle (2003) alludes to the “perfect balance” (red contrasted by green, horizontal and vertical axes anchored by their intersection) that defines human creation.

In these oppositions, Fullerton achieves a certain harmony, revealing himself as “a believer of the possibility of positive change” and as an artist “interested in excavating … meaning” rather than applying it.

Hilary Fair