FAD recently caught up with artist Zachary Eastwood-Bloom founder of Studio Manifold and an artist who explores the blurring space between the real and digital worlds. He also was just choosen for The Jerwood Makers Open happens to have three shows running at the same time and has just secured a year long residency at The Pangolin bronze foundry.
1 We hear you have three exhibitions on at the moment! How did that happen? Can you tell us about them?
I suppose it is just one of those things that can happen from time to time when you’re working away in the studio and then everything comes out at once. I have primarily been working on my commission for the Jerwood Makers Open for the last six months; it has been a very labour intensive sculpture to make. I had been thinking about new work last summer and experimenting in the studio and eventually proposed the piece to the Jerwood, it was a sculpture on a scale which I could not produce in the studio without a destination for it to go to, it would have been way too big to have hanging around. I was fortunate enough to win one of the Maker’s commissions which resulted in a show at the Jerwood Space in Southwark, London before it goes on tour from September. The sculpture, titled ‘Partition’, is made from 60 individually handmade ceramic mesh cubes which together make a wall 2.5m high and 5m long.
The piece took about 6 months to make, whilst I was making it I was asked to put work into two other shows, Sculptor’s Prints and Drawings at the Pangolin gallery and Many a Slip at the Marsden Woo Gallery, a show curated by Alison Britton OBE about how artist and designers explore the challenge of making cups. All of those shows just happened to open in July; it is great to have a diverse range of my work on display across London at one time.
2 Can you tell us about your work and what are the main ideas you try and express?
About 6 or 7 years ago I became fascinated by how digital culture was increasingly invading the material world. At its most basic it presented a polemic between ‘the real and the material’ and something ‘real but immaterial’, over the years since, these opposite ends of the scale have moved closer and closer creating a blurring space. My work aims to explore that blurring space. I tend to use traditional and natural materials like clay, wood or metal and affect them digitally or cast from a digitally manufactured source. I have used processes such as 3d printing and CNC milling in combination with traditional materials and processes.
Mirror
Mirror Detail
The piece I made for the Jerwood Makers Open is the first sculpture in a number of years where I have made the piece solely by hand without digital input. In a way I turned myself into a machine, systematically making units repetitively week on week.
3 Name 3 Artists who have inspired you?
I think that is a tricky question; there is no one artist that wholly inspires me but fragments of peoples work that I like. While I was a student I liked the work of ceramicist Martin Smith and monumental artists like Richard Serra. I can’t really think of a third one, maybe my Dad.
4 What plans do you have to further your career?
Aim to make better work year on year.
5 How do you decide what your next artwork/project will be and how do you know when it is finished?
I often have a lot of half ideas kicking around my head or noted down so I am not short of new works that I want to make. Projects wise it depends on what hits the inbox or if I have applied for something like the Jerwood Makers Open. It is very rare I apply for things though. My next project is a yearlong residency with the Pangolin bronze foundry; I was invited to apply for that.
6 What is studio manifold?
When I graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2010 I was in a class of people who all got on very well together so most of us thought why don’t we stay together. So we did. Over half of us, 9 from a class of 17, went out to look for a studio which we found in east London. The beauty was we could get a much larger space and buy furniture and equipment collectively. As well as that we created a collective identity, Manifold, and did shows and projects together. Five years later we all still work as a team and individually, although not necessarily in the one place due to the growth of families and careers etc but most of us are still in the railway arch in east London. What I find great about the studio is the constant dialogue going on casually amongst us all about our work, like a long passive crit.
7 What plans do you have for the studio?
We are coming up to being together for 5 years now so I think we are going to be having a show to celebrate that and maybe assess what we have all been up to and have a drink.
21st Century Landscape Triptych (Plaster Polymer)
Echo Shift (Bronze)
Emergence
8 Is you had $45,500 to spend on art who would you invest in and why?
I would probably buy work by younger and slightly less established artists such as:
James Irwin – www.jamesirwin.net
Kasper Pincis – www.kasperpincis.com/
Richard Rigg – www.workplacegallery.co.uk/richard-rigg
Hannah Sawtell – vilmagold.com/artist/hannah-sawtell/
Thomas Yeomans – www.thomasyeomans.com/
Greg Howie – www.greghowie.com/works/
All of whom make very intelligent works of art. Why $45,500 by the way? Very specific.
www.studiomanifold.org
www.zacharyeastwood-bloom.com
Fractured
