Isobel Church (b.1984) is a British sculptor living and working in London, who completed an MA with distinction at the Royal College of Art in 2014. With degrees in Anthropology and Chinese art, as well as working on the Percival David Collection of the British Museum, her work draws on scientific mapping and discovery through the lens of ritual and material culture. Church is interested in how an object can bring the unfathomably large or ancient into the realm of the intimate and familiar, creating tactile connections with that which is va
Isobel Church (b.1984) is a British sculptor living and working in London, who completed an MA with distinction at the Royal College of Art in 2014. With degrees in Anthropology and Chinese art, as well as working on the Percival David Collection of the British Museum, her work draws on scientific mapping and discovery through the lens of ritual and material culture. Church is interested in how an object can bring the unfathomably large or ancient into the realm of the intimate and familiar, creating tactile connections with that which is vast, distant or ineffable. Many of her works can be described as ceremonial objects that incorporate and meditate on recent data and imagery, continuing in the tradition of investigating our relationship to natural phenomena and the expanding universe through material investigation, symbolic language and metaphor. The works include porcelain, Chinese ink, concrete, cast paper, embroidery and found objects.
Church’s Moon jars are impressed with a list of natural satellites in a nineteenth century form of tactile script called Moon type.
Her embroideries are part of a series using antique linen thread and ink on canvas, drawing from the remarkably detailed imagery of Mars captured by the Reconnaissance Orbiter and conveying the contours of its ancient landscape.
Thaw, depicts the seasonal defrosting of dunes at Aonia Terra, creating dark defrosted areas in the middle of a white icy plain. Chasma shows the Chasma Boreal in the North, where the ice is cut into ‘flutes’ by strong winds.
Her most renowned exhibitns are: ‘Landings’, Montoro12 Gallery, Brussels (2020); ‘Many Moons’, Montoro12 Gallery, Rome (2017); ‘Platform’ at Leyden Gallery, London (2016); ‘Ode to Erin’ Installation at Town House, Spitalfields, London (2016); ‘Super/Collider: Telescope’ lunar observation and exhibition at Ace Hotel, London (2016); ‘Monochrome’ at Musgrove Gallery, Somerset (2016); ‘Neo craft’ at Arebyte Gallery, London (2014); Royal College of Art Graduate Show, London (2014); ‘Ceramic Art London’ at Kensington Core, London (2014); ‘As Is the Sea’ at Darwin Gallery, London (2014); ‘Anima’ at Caroline Gardens Chapel, London (2013) . Isobel Church has been shortlisted for the following awards: T.I.N.A. Rome prize (2016); T.I.N.A. Chicago prize (2016); Arte Laguna Prize at Arsenale, Venice (2015); Winner of the Black Swan Arts prize and Glass Hub Award, Bath (2014).
