Installed across a floor of vinyl collages, Anna Reading’s The Pothole presents a series of new sculpture and performance works developed over the past year as the 16th recipient of the major UK award.

Combining layers of surplus commodity materials, including shredded foam, gravel, oyster shells, bitumen, chip forks and cardboard, Reading creates a highly tactile and fragmented environment. Her sculptures appear familiar and puzzling at once, existing between life form and architecture, ancient and futuristic and decay and regeneration.

This new body of work continues the artist’s exploration into the absurd relationship between the organic and the synthetic. Reading’s sculptural structures appear as relics from an unknown future. She combines materials that cling to the sculptures ‘as if they’ve grown there without being cleaned away’, in an attempt to consider ‘what can grow uncontrollably out of moments of destruction and chaos’.

Cross Lane Projects is situated just off Chapel Lane, off Kirkland, and a five minute walk away from Abbot Hall Art Gallery. So you can visit Kendal and make the most of our wonderful art scene.

About the Artist

Anna Reading (b. 1987, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK) is a London based artist and a graduate of MFA Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art (2017), where she received the Siva-Finestone Scholarship, and holds a BA (Hons) Fine Art, Central St Martins (2010). Her work was included in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2018. Recent exhibitions include Sugar Mountain,The Silver Building, London, Shell Shelter and Raven Ravine with Pallas Citroen, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, Everything, Assembly Point, London. A Field Guide to Getting Lost, The Art Foundation, Athens. Cloud Concrete, Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop, London. POND, Kaitak Gallery, Hong Kong. Loop, Lubomirov / Angus Hughes, London and Object 77B, Laure Genillard, London.

Reading was selected from 260 applicants from across the UK by a panel comprising Clare Lilley, Director of Programme, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Cathie Pilkington RA, Frances Richardson MTSA winner 2017-18, and Rebecca Scott, artist and Mark Tanner Trust.

Mark Tanner Sculpture Award

The MTSA is one of the most significant awards for emerging UK artists working in the field of sculpture. Offering £8,000 towards the making of new work, it rewards outstanding and innovative practice, with a particular interest in work that demonstrates a commitment to the process, or sensitivity to material.

The Pothole tours to Cross Lane Projects from Standpoint Gallery, London and will continue to Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre in Spring 2020.