Polly Gould
 
 
Polly Gould  Erebus and Northern Islets  2012  silvered hand-blown glass sphere, watercolour on sandblasted glass
 
> Curriculum vitae
Exhibitions and projects at the gallery:

Architecture for an Extinct Planet  2020 VOLTA NY  2017, Penguin Pool  2015, No More Elsewhere  2013, TOPOPHOBIA  2012, The Well  2004

 

Polly Gould works across media in which storytelling plays a strong part, either with performances that narrate the artworks in some way, or in the fictions and histories that inform the works. These might be sculptures in glass or fabric, sound or video works, installation pieces, drawing, watercolour, found objects or pin-boards. With an interest in collections and archives Gould has shown work in places such as the British Library, London, and Botanic Gardens in Cambridge and Sydney, and in natural history museums in Bergen, Norway and Maastricht, Netherlands, as well as showing in galleries internationally. Gould was selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2007. She has a short-story in a collection of fiction by contemporary visual artists in Britain, 2006. Polly Gould studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, and has undertaken both Fine Art and Theory residencies at the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht, Netherlands. She has recently completed a PhD in Art and Architecture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London and is currently post-doctoral research fellow in design-led architectural research with ARC Architectural Research Collaborative, Newcastle University, UK.

SELECTED WORKS
 
Zoological Garden: Wolf
2020  Coloured glass, magic lantern slides, copper tape and solder  33 x 33cm
 
 
 
Paper Architecture: Dent du Géant
2020  Inkjet print on paper, thread  30 x 42cm
 
 
 
The Crystal Chain: habit/refuge
2020  paper, inkjet print, watercolour, thread, mannequins  Dimensions variable  Installation view by Oskar Proctor
 
 
 
Manifesto for an Architecture of Atmospheres
2020  Sound, wood, organdie cotton, geodesic hubs  Dimensions variable  Installation view by Oskar Proctor
 
 
 
Architecture for an Extinct Planet: Birds of Paradise
2017  Coloured glass, magic lantern slides, copper tape and solder  27 x 30 x 54cm
 
 
 
Trophy
2017  black-out fabric, thread, watercolour  20 x 20 x 9 cm
 
 
 
Monument to Folly
2017  black-out fabric, thread, watercolour, gold leaf, wood and brass  195 x 65 x 65 cm
 
 
 
Liberty's Pedestal
2017  black-out fabric, thread, watercolour, found wood and brass  135 x 35 x 30cm
 
 
Alpine Architecture: Aiguilles du Midi
2017  pen and ink, watercolour on paper   35 x 54 cm
Polly Gould
 
Alpine Architecture: Matterhorn
2017  pen and ink, watercolour on paper   34.5 x 54 cm
Polly Gould
 
Alpine Architecture: Dent du Géant
2017  pen and ink, watercolour on paper   35 x 54.5 cm
Polly Gould
The mountain Dent du Géant, part of the Mont Blanc massif, translates as ‘Giant’s tooth’. A craggy canine cutting through a snow-capped gum, Polly Gould’s choice of watercolour is unexpected here. The flatness of the medium softens the mountain’s extremity, lending the painting a dream-like quality; a climber’s mirage. In the tonal shifts of the mountain’s greys and browns, the negative space of snow, we almost forget what it would be like up there. The thin air and the freezing temperature; exhaustion overridden by determination

On top of the mountain sits something strange, futuristic even; a purple and yellow structure, almost half the size of the page. It is made up of individual pyramid shapes, tent-like, the translucency of the paint revealing their convergence to a central point. The nature of watercolour, with its subtleties and softness, acclimatises the viewer to the appearance of this alien structure in all its precarity, somehow managing not to tumble from view. Drawing on Bruno Taut’s conception of a utopian city in the alps, Gould presents us with her vision of refuge. A refuge not only from the elements but also, as art so often is, a refuge from the world around us - an architecture that we can duck into, removing ourselves from the ascension of our own lives, just for a moment. A tentative suggestion of utopia, balanced on the tip of a Giant’s tooth. - Tess Charnley
 
Observation Hill
2012  silvered hand-blown glass spheres, watercolour on sandblasted glass
 
 
 
Anamorphic Landscape
2012  silvered hand-blown glass spheres, watercolour on sandblasted glass
 
 
 
Antarctic Archive
2013 Installation view: No More Elsewhere  Danielle Arnaud London  2013
 
 
 
Lantern Landscape
2013 Installation view: No More Elsewhere  Danielle Arnaud London  2013