Gallery No.32

Tom Hackett, 'Table Dog Ball'. An oversized, absurd table football pole with yellow silicone dogs skewered together in place of miniature human forms kicking a ball. The piece remembers the site as a previous place of play as a former golf driving range, drawing on the ghosts of ball games gone by. Tom presents this piece as a game you cannot play, with no goal and no ball. Suggesting purpose, offering play, but simultaneously witholding and denying it.

Charlie Franklin, 'Psychic Defence'. Charlie's work considers control within what she broadly descirbes as landscape. Ambiguous or empty areas that sit between wilderness, industry, recreation and agriculture. Charlie is interested in making public art that does not necessarily adhere to traditional requirements; to be anti-authoritation, temporary and materially experimental. This work is called Psychic Defence, borrowing from the visual language of the hay bale it's made of stacked bundles of recycled bubble wrap bound in pink gaffa tape. Her aim was to build a section of wall, made from bulbous forms acting as a futile barrier, a folly, or a forgotten fragment of something larger that no longer remains.

Poppy Whatmore, 'Playtime'. Poppy Whatmore addresses how power structures are established in the objects we encounter everyday. By reconfiguring typical scenes from our domestic lives, she confronts the shadows of patriarchal and societal power that shroud the things we use. By placing day-to-day objects in new compositions the learnt myth and messaging society has assigned them is adjusted. Much like the WINTER SCULPTURE PARK, Poppy is demonstrating how an alternative context can help us interrogate what we’re being shown and why.

Stephanie Douet, 'Brutalist Crazy Golf'. Stephanie creates exaggerated forms bursting with vibrant theatricality. Her work draws from an eclectic mix of historical influences; from Chinoiserie and Victorian Gothic, to Pop Art and, most recently, Brutalist architecture. A recent residency in Croatia sparked her obsession with Brutalist monuments, particularly with the Spomenik - the Serbo-Croat/Slovenian word for monument refering to the pioneering abstract memorials built in Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia between the 1960s and the 1990s, marking the horror of occupation by Axis forces and the triumph of their defeat during World War II. Drawn to their raw, emotional presence aligning with the Brutalist surroundings of Thamesmead, and in the shadow of the abandoned club house building, Stephanie presents her own memorial to the space, with a nod to the playful absurdity of crazy golf.

Eleanor Mclean, 'Wishes'. Eleanor draws on mass cultural memory, instigating nostalgia in each of us as we view her work. Using familiar objects of childhood stories and spaces she creates installations and sculptures that prompt us to remember moments that may have sunk into the depths of our minds. She brings these thoughts to the foreground to create a moment of blissful remembering, our thoughts perhaps aligned with each other, whilst reflecting her specific childhood memories culturally embedded in her working class background.

Ellie Harrison, 'Life Raft'. Designed as the final hole of a playable mini golf course, 'Life Raft' is a scale map of the UK which requires a treacherous crossing to reach. Ellie's work is often playful, whilst harbouring weighty, significant socio-political commentary. This work is a reflection on the escalating number of climate refugees predicted over the next century, displayed in an apt location along the flood planes of the Thames. Originally shown as part of ‘Doug Fishbone’s Leisure Land Golf’, one of the collateral events of the 2015 Venice Biennale, it appears as part of WINTER SCULPTURE PARK 2025, marking 10 years since it's conception, a somber occasion given the tragic events that have unfolded in the English channel in recent years.

Marcus Orlandi, 'Don't Fight'. Marcus Orlandi steals from high brow and low brow cultures, confronting each with eachother. Flitting with the ease of a channel change between 1960’s conceptual performance art and WWE professional wrestling, Marcus sets new stakes for what is believed and what is true. Through this practice he is exposing the influence and omnipotence of catchy slogans and hyperbolic tabloid headlines. This work is reminiscent of the artist's own walks in the area, finding piece following tensions appearing in his own life.

Maja Novak, 'Body Vessel'. Maja Novak uses the limitations of her materials to question the limitations of being human. She kneads and stretches tensile forms from unexpecting materials, and places them amongst nature to explore how they will adapt amongst changing ecologies. Connected with the landscape, these shapes both lose their functions, and accrue new ones. Pots may contain while emptying, forms may both grasp and loosen. Dis-order becomes apparent, a new ecosystem of function, purpose and form evolving. Much like the human body, changing with every breath.

Elliot Macdonald, 'Pillar of the Community'. Our cultural institutions are often made by hands that feel unwelcome. And the craftsmanship of the unnamed maker is left unsaid. Elliot Macdonald is shining a light on the unnamed maker through his use of everyday materials to create structures and moments that confront the grandiose, presenting an alternative by detaching the work from the pomp and power it’s used to evoke. Well aligned with the ambitions of WINTER SCULPTURE PARK, Elliot's column is a wry comment on the blocades that can make visitors feel so unwelcome in these institutions.

Jeremy Wyatt, 'In search of everything I need'. A manifestation of Jeremy's childhood fantasy of escape; a floating safe haven above the ground. It is a meditation on the desire to seek refuge at any age, to retreat from the world we have created, and then to reflect, create and share in order to better enter it once again. Often creating spaces of exploration, Jeremy builds climate conscious spaces of play both in his art practice and in his business making experimental playgrounds for children.