AUERBACH, HAMANA, HEPWORTH, PAGE, SASRAKU | Press: Frank Auerbach, Kazunori Hamana, Barbara Hepworth, Christopher Page, Tanoa Sasraku

Ben Hunter is pleased to present Auerbach, Hamana, Hepworth, Page, Sasraku. The works included in the exhibition span more than seventy years and are united by overlapping formal and conceptual characteristics.

Frank Auerbach’s reworked portrait of Julia counterbalances the single, confident line which Barbara Hepworth employs to describe her subject, however both artworks foster a sense of immediacy in their execution. The artist’s hand is equally evident in Kazunori Hamana’s characteristically irregular vessels which are unglazed, finger-printed, cracked and fissured. After they are fired, Hamana places the vessels outside of his studio to allow the natural elements to mark and transform them. Similarly, Tanoa Sasraku forages pigments and uses natural materials to create works which reference place and memory. Christopher Page’s reflectionless mirror opens up a void echoing Hamana’s vessels which punctuate each room of the exhibition.

All of the works in the exhibition are examples of the artists’ repetitive investigation of their subject: the sitter, the vessel, Terratypes, the mirror.