Fen Ditton Gallery is delighted to announce a new collaboration with Kip Gresham of the Print Studio launching a new body of work with leading American sculptor Willard Boepple (b.1945).
‘Shards and Their Sources’ sheds new light on the 20 year dialogue between a master printer and a sculptor. A newly editioned selection of screenprints produced here in Cambridge will be hung alongside a series of low relief vinyl sculptures, or Shards, which Willard has developed over the past eighteen months in America in direct response to the screenprinting collaboration with Kip.
Willard Boepple: Big Green ‘30.06.22’, screenprint; ‘Shard I’, low relief vinyl sculpture
In a newly commissioned essay by American art critic Michael Fried, he writes of the monoprints that they are “...manifestly the work of a sculptor as one tracks not just the interaction of the hues but also the sense of implied physical relationships among the different shapes... an implied continuity from one shape to the next, as if across a sharp spatial "fold."
It was this implied continuity and sharp spatial folds that inspired Willard to take his monoprints, translate them to vinyl and re-work the narrative back into low relief, three-dimensional forms.
Fried writes of the ‘Shards’, “[they] offer a viewing experience unlike any with which I was previously familiar -- though at the same time they exemplify the pursuit of what the photographer Edward Weston called "Form, an unarguably right relationship of shapes, a visual stability in which all components are equally important." A traditional ideal, here given untraditional realization.”
Re-united with their sources in this major exhibition, this is the first time the ‘Shards’ have been shown in the UK.
Willard Boepple: ‘George’ screenprint; ‘Shard 105’, low relief vinyl sculpture
Willard’s bold, abstract sculptures have been exhibited internationally and are held in major public and private collections across the world. His work in print began by meeting Kip in early 2004 and has gone on to be a significant part of his artistic practice. His screenprints were exhibited at Fen Ditton Gallery in January 2022 in ‘The Language of Abstraction’. Willard’s work stood out as a unique and dynamic response to the medium, offering a sculptural experience through the layered medium of screenprint, and we are excited to be exploring this further in this solo exhibition.
A specially created small publication, featuring the full essay by Michael Fried, has been produced to mark the show and will be available from the gallery.
Exhibition opening times: 19th May - 18th June
Open Saturday and Sundays 10am - 5pm
Thursdays and Fridays by appointment. Contact info@fendittongallery.com to book.