Retracing Nature at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset.

Retracing Nature is a two person show opening on the 8th of February at Make Hauser & Wirth Somerset, I am showing a new series of vessels alongside utensils with  Ceramicist Adam Buick.

“Stuart Cairns is a contemporary metalsmith using the forms of silversmithing objects, of dining and ritual, as places to explore materials and tell stories. The visual language created emerges from his immersion in landscape whether through walking, wild swimming, photography, drawing or gathering. Utilising found objects and materials collected on walks through his local landscape, combined with steel and patinated silver, Cairns creates unique, small forms, intimate in nature, translating elements of this personal journey. With this collection, conceived for Make, Cairns returns to vessel forms, set alongside the shapes of utensils and tools, acting as physical representations of a lived landscape, alive with memory.

Objects are drawn out of the natural lines of grasslands and wetlands, combining with the marks of skeletal boat hulls, shattered jetties and fragmented fence lines, to summon a sense of the land, of a past and of our place within it. Structures are formed of found objects and precious and base metals, sitting in series and sets, as if in remembrance of a previous function and forgotten personal rituals.

This body of works can be seen as a series of visual poetry. Half sketched, traced with touches of making, these vessels and implements reflect a fleeting experience; of people passing through as the landscape endures.

This work was made possible through the Support of the Individual Artist Programme by the Arts Council for Northern Ireland.