Artist Talk: Florian Roithmayr

Florian Roithmayr works with sculpture to generate and trace material transformations in the processes of making. The ambition in his work is to register the consequences of one surface or material yielding another through capturing the unexpected gestures that occur in the gap between mould and cast. In this interstitial space, occurrences often remain unforeseeable and unaccountable.

Roithmayr’s focus is on labour that renders itself invisible upon completion and he nurture this research through undertaking intensive internships, shadowing engineering specialists such as a car surface decorator and a concrete beautician, who manipulate materials to perform beyond their physical expectations. Learning from the meticulous attention to detail in these procedures, Roithmayr embeds his work in the micro-processes emerging in his studio practice as maker: here, sculptures act not as discrete objects but as representations of an accumulation of research, process and production.

Florian Roithmayr (b. Germany) lives and works in Reading and Wysing. He has had major solo exhibitions recently including: ir re par sur, Bloomberg Space, London (2017) with, and, or, without, Camden Arts Centre (2016); SERVICE, MOT International Brussels (2015); Matter of Engagement, Site Gallery, Sheffield (2014); Treignac Projet, Treignac, France. Group exhibitions include: Foreign Objects, CCA Derry-Londonderry (2016); Inland Far, Herbert Read Gallery (2016); Things That Tumble Twice, Tenderpixel, London (2015); The Influence of Furniture on Love, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire (2014); S1 Artspace, Sheffield; Grazer Kunstverein, Graz; Galeria d’Arte Moderna, Turin; and Liverpool Biennial.

Roithmayr is currently exhibiting as part of Home is not a place, The Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in London, and has recently been appointed for the public art commission of the new Chelsea Embankment Foreshore in collaboration with architects Hawkins & Brown, and is developing exhibitions with HS Projects in London and a sculpture and research project co-commissioned by the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Kettle’s Yard, and Wysing Arts Centre in Cambridgeshire.

£3 pre paid ticket through Eventbrite/ Free for SAW members & students & under 25’s.