Join us for a FREE 4 week workshop series led by multidisciplinary artist, Sophie Knight. 

The workshops will centre on collecting and celebrating objects in our lives that hold either great significance or through repeated daily use become ritualistic despite their mundane purposes. These could be cups, combs, brushes, paper clips, pots & pans, jewellery or musical instruments – the things we use daily that connect us to our bodies and our present moments. Starting from our object we will begin drawing, creating collages, sketches, paintings and more, trying our hands at a variety of mediums to shift our perceptions of our objects. We will move on to sculpting our objects using air-dry clay, scaling up or down to once more shift our shapes. The aim over the 4 weeks will be to collect a rich visual and physical library of objects that will then be worked from, further shifted, into paintings/drawings/sculptures/installations, immortalizing these interpretations of our collective precious-mundane-everyday-once in a blue moon-personal items.

A practice in continued object permanence through observational art creation.

Workshop 1 – Tuesday 23rd June, 10.30am-2pm

We will meet as a group and discuss the objects we have brought with us, what significance do they hold? We will begin by observing our objects thoroughly and capturing them in observational drawing on paper, playing with scaling them up or down. Then we will move onto collage and color – distorting our objects and adding to them.

Workshop 2 – Tuesday 30th June, 10.30am-2pm

Working from our drawings we will begin sculpting using air-dry clay, with the aim of further distorting and enhancing our objects – not just copying them. This will be an opportunity to see our objects blown beyond their original sizes, volumes, lengths etc. by altering them and changing their purposes from functional objects to sculptural totems.

Workshop 3 – Tuesday 7th July, 10.30am-2pm 

We will continue both drawing and sculpting. Once happy with our sculptures we will cycle back to practicing in 2D, drawing not from our original objects but from our sculpted ones, setting them up as still lifes within a scene perhaps. We will compare our initial drawings of our original objects to the drawings of our sculpted dopplegangers. Working with charcoal, pencil, paint and collage, we will build visual libraries of our objects. 

Workshop 4 – Tuesday 14th July, 10.30am-2pm

By the final week we will have a rich library of imagery and sculptures. We will collate them together and discuss the ways they have evolved through the 2D to 3D back to 2D journey and also how the objects relate to each other as a grouping of unique pieces. We will take time to draw and sculpt from each other’s objects, creating a collaborative collage together on a large scale either on canvas or paper.

Workshop information

• Workshop 1 – Tuesday 23rd June, 10.30am-2pm
• Workshop 2 – Tuesday 30th June, 10.30am-2pm
• Workshop 3 – Tuesday 7th July, 10.30am-2pm
• Workshop 4 – Tuesday 14th July, 10.30am-2pm

To ensure fair access, please book only if you can attend all 4 sessions.

Free to participate – 15 free places available
Open to adults aged 18+
All materials are provided

Time: 10.30am – 2pm (please aim to arrive 10-15 mins earlier)
Location: SPACE Ilford, 10 Oakfield Road, Ilford, IG1 1ZJ

How to Book

Email: exhibitions@spacestudios.org.uk
Subject line: Shape/Shift Workshops 

Please include:

• Full name
• Age
• Postcode
• Phone number
• Any health, medical or access needs
• Emergency contact / next of kin details

Bio

Sophie Lourdes Knight (UK&USA) is a multidisciplinary artist born in California, USA. She studied at California College of the Arts (USA), graduating with a BFA in 2014, and at the Slade School of Fine Art (UK) graduating with an MFA in 2022. She is a co-curator of the RELAY Exhibition Series in Oakland, CA, and a 2019 & 2020 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation awardee. Knight’s work attempts to disrupt the hierarchical economy of value within the world of objects. By placing overlooked, everyday items alongside spectacular things of beauty she establishes them as on a level plain; both objects are prescribed as having the same inherent value. They transcend their physical limitations and rise to become akin to religious idols or spiritual totems.