Olivia Bax – Thresh and Hold
OLIVIA BAX
Thresh and Hold
28 November 2024 – 31 January 2025
Opening on Thursday 28th November from 6 pm to 9 pm
The artist will be present.
RIBOT is pleased to present Thresh and Hold, Olivia Bax’s second solo exhibition at the gallery. Born in Singapore in 1988 and currently based in London, Bax showcases a selection of sculptures created over the past three years. These works highlight the artist’s distinctive style and approach while introducing new directions in her research, revealed through a thoughtfully emblematic exhibition layout.
The title of the new exhibition in Milan references Dee Morris’s poem Gertrude Stein Sets a Table, which recounts and describes a series of gestures associated with setting the table, sitting down, and eating. These actions serve as both the narrative inspiration and conceptual framework for the exhibition. Morris uses the phrase “a thresh and a hold” to describe the action and interaction between movements and objects. This expression, though difficult to translate literally, refers to contrasting forces that are essential to the dynamics of the situation. A “thresh” that divides and a “hold” that restrains come together in the term “threshold,” which translates to “soglia” in Italian. Bax embraces this dual meaning as a reflection of her sculptural process: crossing boundaries to discover new forms, separating sections and then uniting them, and holding diverse elements together. Her work poetically engages contrasts, balancing concave and convex shapes, solidity and softness, straight and curved lines.
The table, referenced in the poem and seen as an everyday microcosm or interface with reality, is transformed into a central formal and compositional element in the works on display. Each sculpture is positioned in relation to a table, which serves not merely as support but as an integral part of the composition, blending with the sculpture to the point of almost merging and allowing interaction or passage through it. These are intricate and complex creations, incorporating recognizable elements from everyday life and the surrounding environment—components that fascinate Bax for their symbolic and suggestive qualities: windows, railings, grates, as well as objects like containers, bags, strainers, hooks, and handles. The works thus become hybrids, created from elements of earlier unresolved pieces that are broken down and recomposed, then covered with manually shaped, colored papier-mâché. This process conceals their metal core while revealing the expressive, plastic form.
For Thresh and Hold, the artist has created a series of different wall sculptures, all titled Guston’s View. This special project is a tribute to Philip Guston (1913–1980), reflecting a shared fascination with the topos of the window—a physical and metaphorical threshold between two worlds.
Olivia Bax (Singapore, 1988, lives and works in London). She studied at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (2010) and Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, (2016). Her works have been shown in solo and group shows at: New Art Centre, Salisbury, 2024; Boo Lee and Workman, Bruton, 2024-2022; Cross Lane Projects, Kendal, 2024; The Lightbox, Surrey, 2024-2023; Royal Western Academy, Bristol, 2024; Cittadella degli Archivi di Milano, Milan, 2024; Holtermann Fine Art, London, 2024-2022; HATCH, Paris, 2023; Standpoint Gallery, London, 2023-2020; White Conduit Projects, London, 2023; Platform for Contemporary Sculpture, Tilburg, 2023; Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, 2023; Saatchi Gallery, London, 2022-2018-2015; HS Projects, London 2021; Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, 2021-2020; RIBOT gallery, Milan, 2019; Lily Brooke Gallery, London, 2018; Christian Larsen Gallery, Stockholm, 2017. Prizes include: Mark Tanner Sculpture Award, London, 2019; Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize, London, 2016. Her works today are part of private and public collections such as: Art Council Collection, The Ingram Collection, Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, UCL Special Collections, Lukowa Art Collection.
