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We spend much of our lives sitting, yet rarely think about the act itself.
A chair supports the body, allowing us to pause. Around that simple exchange, much of life unfolds. We sit while sharing meals, waiting for news, working, grieving, celebrating, listening, recovering, and watching the world pass. The chair remains constant while the experiences we bring to it are endlessly different.
The Weight of Sitting begins with this quiet observation. Rather than approaching the chair simply as an object of function, Douglas Powell considers it as a vessel for human experience. A witness to moments both ordinary and profound. A place where memory accumulates, responsibility settles, care is offered, absence is felt, and time quietly passes.
Each work begins with one of these conditions. The chairs remain functional, yet they are not resolved through comfort alone. Instead, they invite a moment of pause, encouraging us to become aware not only of the object beneath us, but of what we ourselves might be carrying.
Working across steel, aluminium, timber, stone and composite materials, Powell approaches making as a process of continual negotiation. Material is never treated as passive. Weight, texture, resistance and structure each shape the outcome, allowing every object to arrive at its own resolution through the act of making. Craftsmanship is not expressed through perfection, but through an attentiveness to process and an openness to discovery.
There is a quiet generosity to these works. They ask little of us beyond our presence. To sit. To pause. To notice.
Ultimately, The Weight of Sitting is not an exhibition about chairs.
It is about the lives that unfold around them.
Perhaps we have always brought more to a chair than our physical weight.
A chair supports the body, allowing us to pause. Around that simple exchange, much of life unfolds. We sit while sharing meals, waiting for news, working, grieving, celebrating, listening, recovering, and watching the world pass. The chair remains constant while the experiences we bring to it are endlessly different.
The Weight of Sitting begins with this quiet observation. Rather than approaching the chair simply as an object of function, Douglas Powell considers it as a vessel for human experience. A witness to moments both ordinary and profound. A place where memory accumulates, responsibility settles, care is offered, absence is felt, and time quietly passes.
Each work begins with one of these conditions. The chairs remain functional, yet they are not resolved through comfort alone. Instead, they invite a moment of pause, encouraging us to become aware not only of the object beneath us, but of what we ourselves might be carrying.
Working across steel, aluminium, timber, stone and composite materials, Powell approaches making as a process of continual negotiation. Material is never treated as passive. Weight, texture, resistance and structure each shape the outcome, allowing every object to arrive at its own resolution through the act of making. Craftsmanship is not expressed through perfection, but through an attentiveness to process and an openness to discovery.
There is a quiet generosity to these works. They ask little of us beyond our presence. To sit. To pause. To notice.
Ultimately, The Weight of Sitting is not an exhibition about chairs.
It is about the lives that unfold around them.
Perhaps we have always brought more to a chair than our physical weight.
COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON COMING SOON
There are artists who spend their careers trying to make sense of the world. Peter D Cole has spent more than fifty years now quietly building one of his own.
Surrounded by his works, it quickly becomes apparent that the ordinary rules no longer apply. Lamps become sculptures. Sculptures behave like architecture. Paintings abandon the wall and wander into the centre of rooms. Trees interrupt perfect geometry. Colour somehow feels louder than colour should, and between all of this you will catch yourself smiling, though you may not be entirely sure why.
Perhaps that's because Peter has never been particularly interested in making objects as something much more ephemeral.
How does an idea exist in space?
For decades that question has quietly guided his practice. Sometimes the answer is a sculpture. Sometimes it's functional. Sometimes it's a painted construction balanced somewhere between a drawing and architectural plan. The medium has never really been the point. The conversation between them is.
This exhibition continues a line of enquiry Peter has pursued for his entire practice. One that draws equally from art history, architecture, design, structure and the physical act of making itself. The way an image is held, balanced or suspended in space is never incidental. It is the work.
Geometry has long been part of Peter's vocabulary, but never its conclusion. His precisely ordered forms are continually interrupted by something less obedient. A weathered branch. An unexpected colour. A playful gesture. Mathematical precision gives way to biomorphic intuition. Order happily makes room for chance.
That's what makes these works feel so alive.
Rather than a collection of individual objects, this exhibition feels like an ecosystem. Sculptures gather like old friends in conversation. Painted forms migrate from one work to another like recurring characters. Ideas appear, disappear and resurface in unexpected places. Every object seems to recognise the others.
What has always fascinated me about Peter's practice is that it never insists upon a single reading. There are no riddles demanding to be solved, no symbolism to decode before entry is granted. Instead, the works offer something increasingly rare: permission to remain curious.
Spend enough time with them and they begin to oscillate between sculpture, architecture, furniture, theatre, toys and monuments. Just as you've decided what one thing is, it quietly becomes something else.
Perhaps we've spent too much time asking objects to explain themselves. Is it art? Is it design?Is it sculpture?Is it furniture?
Peter has spent more than fifty years politely suggesting those are the least interesting questions wecould ask. Because perhaps the point was never deciding what these things are.
Perhaps the point is simply allowing them to be.
Surrounded by his works, it quickly becomes apparent that the ordinary rules no longer apply. Lamps become sculptures. Sculptures behave like architecture. Paintings abandon the wall and wander into the centre of rooms. Trees interrupt perfect geometry. Colour somehow feels louder than colour should, and between all of this you will catch yourself smiling, though you may not be entirely sure why.
Perhaps that's because Peter has never been particularly interested in making objects as something much more ephemeral.
How does an idea exist in space?
For decades that question has quietly guided his practice. Sometimes the answer is a sculpture. Sometimes it's functional. Sometimes it's a painted construction balanced somewhere between a drawing and architectural plan. The medium has never really been the point. The conversation between them is.
This exhibition continues a line of enquiry Peter has pursued for his entire practice. One that draws equally from art history, architecture, design, structure and the physical act of making itself. The way an image is held, balanced or suspended in space is never incidental. It is the work.
Geometry has long been part of Peter's vocabulary, but never its conclusion. His precisely ordered forms are continually interrupted by something less obedient. A weathered branch. An unexpected colour. A playful gesture. Mathematical precision gives way to biomorphic intuition. Order happily makes room for chance.
That's what makes these works feel so alive.
Rather than a collection of individual objects, this exhibition feels like an ecosystem. Sculptures gather like old friends in conversation. Painted forms migrate from one work to another like recurring characters. Ideas appear, disappear and resurface in unexpected places. Every object seems to recognise the others.
What has always fascinated me about Peter's practice is that it never insists upon a single reading. There are no riddles demanding to be solved, no symbolism to decode before entry is granted. Instead, the works offer something increasingly rare: permission to remain curious.
Spend enough time with them and they begin to oscillate between sculpture, architecture, furniture, theatre, toys and monuments. Just as you've decided what one thing is, it quietly becomes something else.
Perhaps we've spent too much time asking objects to explain themselves. Is it art? Is it design?Is it sculpture?Is it furniture?
Peter has spent more than fifty years politely suggesting those are the least interesting questions wecould ask. Because perhaps the point was never deciding what these things are.
Perhaps the point is simply allowing them to be.
