The Grammar of Ornament

The output for this project is a body of work consisting of 37 intricate hand cut papercuts and 37 related plates which was informed by the 1856 seminal publication Grammar of Ornament by architect and designer Owen Jones. The papercuts and ceramics correspond to, and are numbered according to each of the original thirty-seven propositions which form the ‘general principles in the arrangement of form and colour in architecture and the decorative arts.’ Each proposition provided a starting point in which the female figure appears as a protagonist serving to undermine and disrupt the rigidity of the Victorian hierarchical system as presented by Jones. The work also draws upon the ornate and richly coloured chromolithographic illustrations in the publication. The main body of work was first exhibited at jaggedart London and subsequently at New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge. A number of artworks were also included in Collect (Crafts Council) at Saatchi Gallery, London and formed a show (two person) at Clara Scremini Gallery, Paris. (Illustrated catalogue ISBN 978-1-903455-30-2

Inscriptions: drawing, making, thinking

‘Inscription: drawing, making, thinking’ brought together the work of David Conneam, Philip Eglin and Charlotte Hodes, it included drawings, ceramics, moving image and evidence of their working process. The exhibition was curated as part of the Jerwood Visual Arts Encounters series

Unwrapping the line

‘Unwrapping the Line’ represented drawings by five creative practitioners; C. Hodes, F. Geesin, N. Hormazd, J. Radvan, J. Shellard who are practice led researchers at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. What brings these researchers together is their use of themes pertinent to creative practice in a fashion design college, that is; cloth, textile, pattern blocks and the figure. In addition, each researcher in their own way has used the line as a key element, weaving the line through their imagery. The artworks on exhibition represent a range of processes available to the contemporary practitioner to make their line, from the pencil or thread, to film and digital technology. ‘Unwrapping the Line’ initiated and curated by Charlotte Hodes, Reader in FIne Art at London College of Fashion with the support of Professor Stephen Farthing Director for Drawing Out conference RMIT University and Stephen Gallagher, Curator, School of Art Galleries, RMIT

Remember Me: Charlotte Hodes Papercuts and Ceramics

This exhibition was a further iteration of Hodes'solo exhibition, of the same name, that took place at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2017. It profiled her long-standing engagement with the boundaries between fine art and craft practice. The work on exhibition consisted of two ceramics installations; ‘Remember Me’ commissioned by and first shown at Wolverhampton Art Gallery in 2017 and ‘Spode Trees and Silhouettes’ commissioned by and first shown at the British Ceramic Biennial in 2015. These ceramic installations, made up of multiple pieces of ready-made tableware represent an alternative ‘canvas’ that reference domesticity and the home. These ideas are further developed through a new sequence of papercuts, ‘Caryatids’ (2018) and paintings which incorporate ceramic plates.The exhibition revealed the way in which Hodes draws from both the rich iconography of the decorative arts and her own hand drawn archive of motifs centred on the female figure. Her woman, depicted as a silhouette, disrupts her given role as a decorative and fragile feature. Hodes ideas are embedded within the collage process through which she challenges accepted hierarchical structures and disrupts notions of quiet female domesticity

The Errant Muse

This exhibition brings together image and text work by collaborators, artist, Charlotte Hodes and poet, Deryn Rees Jones. At the centre of their work over the last five years (2014-2019) has been the creative possibilities that exist in exploring the relationship between poem and image. The focus in their work together - whether in collage, poem, film, papercut, ceramic or drawing - has been the exploration and interrogation of the single female body and its relationship to, and movement through, space and time. In 'The Errant Muse', Hodes and Rees-Jones cultivated an archive of association as they juxtaposed text and artefact from the Victoria Gallery and Museum and the University of Liverpool Special Collections and Archives. Taking on the idea of errancy, of women’s bodies transgressing spaces, wandering off the path, artist and poet offered the viewer a multitude of potential navigations through a new archival landscape

Drawing Skirts (conference paper)

Paper at an international conference on fundamental problems of artistic research and development. It explored the AHRC collaborative project between Dr Cathy Treadaway and Charlotte Hodes which culminated in the exhibition 'Drawing Skirts' at the Baring Wing, University Gallery, University of Northumbria

After the Taking of Tea

The installation 'After the Taking of Tea' consists of over 250 pieces of ready-made tableware. It presents multiple groupings of china ware on which the imagery plays with notions of tea and teatime, its historical importance in polite society and its contemporary role in which formality for the most part has been overturned. The women make an appearance to playfully defy historical conventions. They stand on teapots, use tea sieves as mirrors and microphones, and nonchalantly walk across or rest upon the surfaces of tea crockery. The colour, use of gold and ornamentation is informed by the grand salons of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The texts appear around some of the edges of the ware, as incidental notes that reference literature, politics and the economics of tea. The imagery on each piece of ware is hand cut with a scalpel blade using screen screened and digitally made enamel ceramic transfers that are then fired. The installation is the most ambitious to date that builds on Hodes' engagement with a pictorial language that addresses female creativity, the domestic and notions of the hierarchy in fine art painting through the use of ready-made tableware as a 'canvas'. The installation was accompanied by 2 related papercuts @ 55cm x 72cm 'After the Taking of Tea; Light Shadow' and 'After the Taking of Tea; Grey Shadow' It is informed by the researcher's previous two installations 'Remember Me' 2017. See 'Remember Me' on UALRO at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/11021/ and Spode Trees & 'Dressed Silhouettes' 2015. See 'Dressed in Pattern' on UALRO at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/9668/ 'After the Taking of Tea' was the centre piece in the researcher's solo exhibition 'After the Taking of Tea and other Works' at Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales, a major UK venue for contemporary applied arts. The exhibition at Ruthin Craft Centre also included the two installations 'Remember Me' 2017; 'Spode Trees & Dressed Silhouettes' 2015; paper cut Frieze 2017 (see Remember Me output); and a painting, 2019, based on a poem, 'Fires' by Deryn Rees-Jones. A selection of pieces from this installation was included in the researcher's concurrent exhibition 'Women & Pattern' at The Bowes Museum, Durham, 13 Oct 2018 - 24 Feb 2019. 'After the Taking of Tea' was subsequently shown at Compton Verney in 'A Tea Journey; from the mountains to the table', curated by Antonia Harrison, 6 July - 22 September. It was shown alongside a commissioned large related papercut (184x89cm) 'Even a tea party means apprehension, breakage' that responded to a text from the Bodleian Library 'Ladies in China Cups' and an 18c. engraving from the British Museum ' The Tea Table' both shown alongside Hodes' artworks. The installation was exhibited in a new configuration as part of the exhibition ‘Most Admirably Improved by Art’, Hestercombe, Somerset, a group exhibition inspired by the tercentenary of the birth of artist and designer, CW Bampfylde, 2 March - 28 June 2020

Fragmented images: papercuts and ceramics

This solo exhibition was the culmination of a two year appointment as Associate Artist at the Wallace Collection 2005-2007. Research in the collection focused on the museum as an evocation of female sensuality, with a special focus on 18th century paintings of Antoine Watteau and French Sèvres rococo porcelain. Hodes' research explored the use of the female figure and its relationship to the decorative tradition and the resulting work sought to address how historical depictions of the female figure, ornamentation and working methods, could be reworked within a contemporary framework. Over a two year period, drawings and photographs made on site were the source for a new body of large scale intricately cut papercuts and ceramic vases. The project was supported by awards from Arts Council England and an AHRC award entitled ‘Decoration and the Picture; a contemporary response to The Wallace Collection

Women and Pattern

'Women and Pattern' at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Durham, showcased unique, 'one-off' ceramic artworks created by Charlotte Hodes over the past decade. The exhibition, in a huge cabinet, with the Bowes refurbished ceramic Collections set up a dynamic between the historical and contemporary, triggering touchstones for the way in which the researcher uses references to historical ornament, pattern and ceramic form within her practice-led research. The exhibition presented examples of work from the researcher's residencies at the ceramic factory, Spode and The Wallace Collection, up to the present day, and included vases as well as examples of her 2019 tableware installation 'After the Taking of Tea'. See: After the Taking of Tea, 2019 http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/13979/ Dressed in Pattern 2016 http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/9668/ Silhouettes & Filigree 2009 http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/2648/ Fragmented Images 2007 http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/8824/ Hodes practice crosses a range of processes and she is renowned for her large intricate papercuts and ornate ceramic vessels. Central to her work is the exploration of the female figure and its relationship to decoration and pattern. She uses standard vessel forms and everyday tableware, which she treats as her 'canvas', to build up rich and complex surfaces through a direct process of drawing and collage. Two overriding themes exemplified in the work displayed is the relationship between the pictorial and the pattern, and the representation of women. The exhibition is to be extended

Interview with Charlotte Hodes about Portraiture

This interview is a contribution to the project About Face. About Face is a research group at the University of the Arts London which emerged from the UAL's commitment to encouraging communities of practice to work collaboratively and in cross disciplinary contexts. It brings together artists, theorists, curators and writers to examine what happens when different disciplines and perspectives are brought to bear on the edges of portraiture. The website https://aboutface.arts.ac.uk/ has been archived by the UK Web Archive (UKWA) and therefore can be found via http://www.webarchive.org.uk