Rosie Leventon
Ripple of Light
Friday 5 November 2021 - Friday 14 January 2022
Private View: Thursday 4 November 2021 5-8pm
Rosie Leventon makes sculptural installations, and environmental art in the landscape. She experiments with new materials, such as Celotex Insulation, central heating pipes, recycled mobile phones and paperbacks, as well as more durable stone, water earth and wood and uses them in innovative ways. Continuing themes in her work are the promotion of meditation on vulnerability and the illusion of solidity and permanence in life; many of the works explore things which have been lost, hidden or forgotten.
During Covid-19, Leventon spent vast amounts of time in her workshop making a new series of smaller sculptures in response to the limitations of lockdown using only the materials she could access; plywood or plaster and polymer. Rosie considers these smaller sculptures as maquettes for larger pieces for the future.
The sculptures originate from vernacular architecture, or objects that Leventon has seen on her travels from Orkney to Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Greece and Lebanon. Often these buildings are forgotten and overlooked, from wind towers to termite mounds. Reflecting on the series now it places Leventon in a mind of the familiar London skyline; the cheese grater and the gherkin.
Leventon’s recent awards include Royal Society of Sculptors Spotlight Award 2020 and Felix & Spear Exhibition Prize 2020.
Education
London University, Chinese Language & Archaeology
Croydon College of Art, Fine Art
Central St Martins, Sculpture
London
Serpentine Gallery
Art at Broadgate, Broadgate Centre
Re-Siting Installation, Royal College of Art
Wake, Chisenhale Gallery
Guest Artist, The Independent Artists Fair, The Rag Factory
Et Pendant ce Temps and Unfold, Nettie Horn Gallery
The London Group, Camden Arts Centre
Battersea Arts Centre
Concrete & Glass, Shoreditch Town Hall
MODA Outsize, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Barnet
Royal Society of Sculptors
Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, Orchard Place E14 0JY
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy
Eyestorm, Bankside
Parallax, Fieldgate Gallery, Whitechapel
Rest of the UK
Prospects & Interiors – Recent Acquisitions of Sculptor’s Drawings, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Excavating the Present, Kettles Yard, Cambridge
Undercurrent, Fabrica, Brighton
Glasgow Garden Festival, Glasgow
On Site, International Sculpture Symposium, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
EDGE 90, International Biennale of Innovative Contemporary Art, Newcastle
International Festival of Glass, The Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge, West Midlands
Springing Alive, Manchester City Art Gallery
Forensic Evidence, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton
Forensic Evidence, Mappin Art Gallery Sheffield
International
Convergence International Arts Festival, Rhode Island, USA
Women in Visual Arts, Erector Square Gallery, Connecticut, USA
BECA Foundation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Solo exhibition, Passerelle Centre d’Art, Brittany, France
Eaumages, Festival of Installations, Villedieu Cultural Centre Paris, France
Rosie Leventon at Brandts Klaedefabrik, solo exhibition, Odense, Denmark
Local 01, Holland
Galleria L’Affiche, Milan, Italy
Arte Laguna Prize, Venice, Italy
La Fortezza del Girifalco, Cortona, Tuscany, Italy
Mirades sobre el Museu, Museo d’Arte Contemporani, Barcelona
Der Pfalzgalerie, Kaisers Lautern, Germany
Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky Museum, St Petersburg, Russia
Prague Festival of Contemporary Art, Czech Republic
Centraline Museum, Lodz, Poland
EWAAC Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan
Frankfurt Art Fair, Germany
Cheltenham Open Drawing Exhibition touring to Kunsthalle Sierre, Switzerland
Public Art Commissions
b-side festival, Portland Museum, Isle of Portland, Dorset
Woodland Trust, Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Woods, Leicestershire
New Visions of the Sea, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (now permanently in the Queen's House at the side of main Museum)
2 commissions for King’s Wood, Stour Valley Arts, Kent
Irwell Sculpture Trail, Manchester
Major Award, Portland Quarry & Sculpture Trust, Dorset
Art in Exile, Camden Arts Centre London
3D 89, 2 commissions for Gunnersbury Park and Watermans Gallery, London
Views across the Pond, Blickling Hall, Norfolk
The Stephenson Trail, Sunderland
Competitions and Awards
Royal Society of Sculptors Award 2021
Felix & Spear Award winner 2020
Arts Council Award
Rouse Kent Award for Public Art
EWACC Online Art Competition, 1st Prize
Mark Tanner Award for Sculpture
British Council Travelling Awards
Portland Clifftop Sculpture Park Major Award
The Elephant Trust
Henry Moore Sculpture Trust
London Arts Bursary
EWA East / West Artists Award (Installation)
London Docklands Development Corporation
Books include
Destination Art by Amy Dempsey 2021
The State of Art – Installation & Site Specific #2, Bare Hill Publishing, Sept 2015
Thinking is Making, Presence and Absence in Contemporary Sculpture edited by Michael Taylor, published by Black Dog, April 2013
Sculpture Parks and Trails of England by Alison Stace
Meditative Spaces by Michael Freeman, Universe Publishing, Rizzoli, NY
King’s Wood: A Context edited by Sandra Drew and Liz Kent, published by Stour Valley Arts
Fabrica the First 10 Years introduction by Caroline Collier, essays by Matthew Miller, Liz Whitehead, Nannette Aldred and Phyllida Shaw
Installation Art by Nicolas de Oliveira, Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry, published by Thames and Hudson
The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 by David Buckman published by Art Dictionaries