Platosrotos - 6 UK and Spanish Artists

Opening Date: 2005-Mar-18
Closing Date: 2005-Apr-15
'Platos Rotos' was an invitation by curator Jesus Alcaide to show 4 new works along with Richard Wentworth, Barnaby Barford and three Spanish artists all working with clay in ways seen to be breaking new ground.

New works titled 'Boy' and Boy/Girl' were made for the exhibition and were the results of research exploring how the transformation of clays properties could be produced at low-temperatures and made manifest through a change in colour. The change would be temporary and repeatable as opposed to the one off nature of earlier works.

The change in colour was achieved by applying a mixture of thermo-chromic paint and clay onto an electric blanket which itself was on a concrete base. Initial tests of Thermo-chromic paint and clay involved collaboration with Cornelius Plc who provided paint samples across the full temperature range.

Also shown was a work titled 'library' which was a clay replica of the full set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Embedded In each volume was a high temperature heating element specially made by Elmatic (Cardiff) Ltd which would be switched on in sequence using a multi-switch timer developed in collaboration with the Electrical engineering Department at Aston University.

A video work was also exhibited which documented the use of a two-bar electric fire to heat clay in the back room of a chai seller in Kirkhee village in New Delhi. The work was made as part of the Arts Council International Artists' fellowship undertaken in 2003.