Forever and ever  2015  pencil on paper  32 cm diameter
photograph by Peter White

7 November - 13 December 2015

We are delighted to announce We can hardly imagine how much the angels love the truly chaste, a solo exhibition of new works by Sarah Woodfine.

'Woodfine’s new body of work touches both on our mainstream ideas about moral behaviour – what is good, right, desirable and true, and upon repressed or otherwise obscured drives, intentions or beliefs. These “drawing-sculptures” – for they are both these things at one and the same time – operate at a level that is realistic though imaginary, being pictures formed of natural elements distended or distorted so as to assume a fantastic otherness, a striking strangeness that simultaneously seduces and repels. An alchemical transformation ceaselessly enacts itself before the viewer’s eyes, broken off branches become serpents, a snake becomes a rope, and human hair reconstitutes itself as a clutch of vipers writhing on the head of the Medusa. If the onlooker is ostensibly here turned to stone, then it is the alchemist’s “Philosopher’s Stone” that is also suggested here, a state of grace conveyed to the viewer, at least as a model or ideal to which one may assiduously aspire.'

- Peter Suchin (2015), extract from the accompanying essay Serpents Slipping from Sight published on the occasion of the exhibition.

Sarah Woodfine (born 1968) studied for a BA in Sculpture at Liverpool School of Art and at the Royal Academy Schools. She won the Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2004 and produced the Artangel ‘Nights of London’ Interaction project When Night Draws in in 2006. Recent exhibitions include: a solo presentation at VOLTA NY (2015); Glass Cat 2, Wimbledon Space (2014); Re-viewing the landscape, Compton Verney (2013); Crazee Golf, Tintype Gallery, London (2012); Minimal, Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norway (2012). Her work is in various public and private collections including Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Middlesbrough Art Gallery and Hå Gamle Prestegard, Norway.

Sarah Woodfine  Untitled (Branch) II   2015  pencil on paper, steel and perspex  72 x 24 x 24 cm
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  When all the birds are in the sky   2015  pencil on paper and steel   dimensions variable
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  When all the birds are in the sky   2015  pencil on paper and steel   dimensions variable
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  We can hardly imagine how much the angels love the truly chaste   2015  installation view
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Stem   2015  pencil on paper and steel  90 x 49 x 49 cm
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Untitled (Branch) III and Untitled (Branch) IV   2015  pencil on paper, steel and perspex  72 x 24 x 24 cm
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  We can hardly imagine how much the angels love the truly chaste   2015  installation view
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Untitled (Branch) II   2015  pencil on paper, steel and perspex  72 x 24 x 24 cm
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Dark night   2015  pencil on paper  dimensions variable
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  We can hardly imagine how the angels love the truly chaste   2015  installation view
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Forever and ever   2015  pencil on paper and aluminium  32 cm diameter
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  Forever and ever   2015  pencil on paper and aluminium  32 cm diameter
photograph by Oskar Proctor

Sarah Woodfine  We can hardly imagine how much the angels love the truly chaste   2015
pencil on paper, canford card, found object  16 x 12 x 12 cm  photograph by Oskar Proctor