Ludovica Gioscia: Arturo and the Vertical Sea

Baert Gallery is pleased to announce Ludovica Gioscia's second solo show, Arturo And The Vertical Sea.

Three large-scale wooden structures act as looms that weave together different textures, colour palettes and materials to form ecological assemblages. These giant looms host devotional ceramic compositions resembling ex-votos, textile hangings acting as portals to interspecies tenderness, talismanic robes, double-sided hand painted wallpapers and watercolours recording telepathic exchanges. 

Many works in the show are collaborations between Gioscia and her cat Arturo that employ intimacies such as affection, joy and purring as elements of production. These organic and emotional ingredients are distilled through processes borrowed from Vibrational Medicine, with the distillate permeating a series of new papier-mâchés. These are stacked on live edge wooden shelves made in collaboration with designer Mark Thurgood from wood sourced from Kew Gardens in southwest London, home to the largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collection in the world. 

With titles such as Mapping Emotions, Gift For Arturo, Autumn Harvest and Making Kin, the layered compositions are informed by Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, a recent book by multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway. In the context of climate change, Haraway offers new perspectives on how we could reconfigure our relations to the earth and all of its inhabitants. 

'Making kin' refers to the act of cultivating connections with the other souls - plants, animals and microbes - with whom we share the planet. Although not biologically family-based, such kinship connections foster equally important and urgent obligations and consequences. To make kin is a multi-species call for care. 

To accompany the show Gioscia has created an artist's book in collaboration with curator Marina Dacci titled Cosmic Flow. Inspired by the artist's teenage diaries and sticker albums, the publication is a non- linear journey into her practice, punctuated by Dacci's texts printed on unbound tracing paper.

A real labour of love, it includes four different print methods - a screen printed cover, laser printed pages with risograph accents and stickers. 

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As part of the body of works created for the show, the artist has transcribed a brief conversation with Arturo in which their daily interactions and processes are explored. A diary of daily textures can be read alongside an interview with gallery director Christian Baert in which the artist expands on her processes and ideas within the exhibition.