The Magical World of Aneta Regel .

I managed to get into London to visit Aneta Regel’s solo exhibition at Sarah Myerscough Gallery just before it ended. Seems to be my style these days, but I’m so glad I made the effort. Aneta is a sculptor who works in clay and is very much inspired by the forest and landscape of rocks from where she grew up in northern Poland. The exhibition is called Memory Landscape and has many large scale tree trunk like totems that evoke a sense of walking through a pre-historic forest.

These impressive forms are made from stoneware & porcelain with inclusions of rocks, stones and bricks worked into the body of the forms. They are fired multiple times with thick applications of glaze until the artist is happy with the results. The multiple firings and rock inclusions push the ceramic material to it’s limits and in doing so the pieces hold a mystical energy that sparked my imagination. The rocks used were of all sizes and created beautiful cracks as they erupted through the glaze during the firing or where the clay had shrunk away from the edges of the stones.

As well as her tall tree-like forms, Aneta had many rounded forms with ‘feet’ that looked like huge teeth or weird animals, maybe even walking rocks themselves. Large chunks of granite create hoof-like feet which I felt was incredibly brave on a technical level, but also they made me smile as I imagined these quirky forms moving about the fantasy landscape of petrified trees. She somehow made the chunky rocks at the bottom seem delicate and poised supporting the bulky form above. That is where the magic lies for me - Regel’s work is from her memory and imagination but it also taps into mine.

‘She has a blue leg’ 88cm High!

‘Huba Buba’ 20cm H This was the piece on my fantasy shopping list.

What I found really inspiring was Regel’s use of colour. There were earthy tones of brown & ochre, natural hues of charcoal & white but then also rich blood red shiny glazes, pink glazes and flashes of bright yellow or blue. I am definitely inspired to see how I might add colour into my own work.

This exhibition was an absolute treat. I’ve been a fan of Aneta Regel’s work for a long time now and this was her first solo exhibition in the UK . I have not seen her work on this scale which was SO impressive and the space of a solo show allowed a broad experience of her narritives and unique vision. Extraordinary. The work seems deeply connected to the past yet also manages to be utterly contemporary at the same time. Bravo!