Ordinary Things claims Sarah Lucas’ work as one of the most significant practices of the twenty-first century.

Lucas’s artistic practice is rooted in a rigorous engagement with the histories of sculpture of the twentieth century, be that the concrete-block plinths of Barbara Hepworth, the twisted bodies of Louise Bourgeois, the perversions of Hans Bellmer or the monumentalism of Henry Moore.

Since the 1990s Lucas has been developing a unique sculptural vocabulary that uses everyday domestic items such as tights, clothes hangers, light bulbs, and beer cans to create objects that challenge collectively inscribed codes - social, gender and sexual - through her sculptural forms.  

The exhibition features work from recent series, including NUDs and Penetralia, to make connections to earlier works. Sitting on concrete-block plinths, the NUDs are flesh-like sculptural forms made from stuffed nylon tights, cellulite-marked and gymnastically twisted bodies. These abstractions recall both Lucas’ 1990s questioning of gender stereotyping and the figurative Bunny series that has became emblematic of developments in British sculpture of the last twenty years. Penetralia combine sticks and stones with penis plaster casts, sitting on top of wooden plinths; these small scale works utilising the most traditional sculptural methodologies.

Cutting, welding, moulding, handling, stuffing, assembling. Monumental, ready-made, formal, quick-build, bombastic, representational, abstract, true-to-materials. These are the languages of sculpture; these are the very matter of Lucas’ artistic practice.  

Sarah Lucas was born in London, in 1962 and lives and works in Suffolk.  She was included in the groundbreaking group exhibition, Freeze, in 1988, with contemporaries including Angus Fairhurst, Damien Hirst, and Gary Hume.  Lucas’ work is included in a number of major international collections and surveys of British Art with her solo exhibitions including Perceval, Sarah Lucas at Frans Hals Museum, Kunsthalle Zürich and Tate Liverpool in 2005. 

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