Vigo is pleased to announce PORTA CARVE, a solo exhibition and series of demonstrations by James Capper.
The exploration of the nature of radical engineering, industrial production and hydraulic systems has yielded a collection of striking and unique hydraulic sculptures, including the title work PORTA CARVE which featured in his solo show DIVISIONS at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2013 and LONDON TWELVE at the City of Prague Gallery in 2012. For the first time Capper will present new paintings (BROADCASTS) made by PORTA CARVE during the show.
Having trained initially as a welder-fabricator prior to attending The Royal College of Art, Capper has a strong interest in engineering. PORTA CARVE is a work from Capper’s CARVING DIVISION, one of five categories within his overall practice. Both aesthetically considered and fully functional, each sculpture is unique and has been hand-built by Capper to demonstrate its own distinct function in mark making. Resting on plaster plinths, each carving tool sculpture fulfills its destiny, within the demonstration, milling away at its own base, as a result producing a second sculpture and with it, a plaster broadcasted painting on linen.
In contrast to Pollock, the physical direct touch between the paint and the artist’s hand has again been circumvented, but in this case there is a unique machine in the way designed for purpose, albeit a machine created and controlled by the movement and expression of its operator, the artist. This machine, the initial sculpture PORTA CARVE, is interjecting between the gesture and the resultant abstracted dissemination and expression of the material into which it buries itself.
Capper (b. 1987, London) received his B.A. in Sculpture from the Chelsea College of Arts and his M.A. from the Royal College of Art, London, where he was presented with the Jack Goldhill Award for Sculpture. Solo museum shows include DIVISIONS at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, HYDRAULIC SCULPTURES at the Cass Sculpture Foundation, and RIPPER TEETH IN ACTION at Modern Art Oxford. His works have been included in recent exhibitions at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; The Moving Museum, Dubai; The City of Prague Gallery; The Saatchi Gallery, London; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He lives and works in London.