“This is an exhibition of survival spells, of alchemical accumulations where the mind and body meet.”1

Maureen Paley is pleased to present the sixth solo exhibition by Anne Hardy. A new group of floor and wall sculptures will be presented across both the gallery and Studio M. The exhibition will also be accompanied by an artist’s publication co-published by Dent–De–Leone, designed by Kåjsa of Åbäke with a commissioned text by Lisa Le Feuvre.

The works in the exhibition, begun during Anne Hardy’s residency at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, display the earthy, weather-worn tones of a desert or an archaeological site. The materials found there, in the street outside her London studio and while foraging within the in-between spaces of cities, are incorporated throughout the sculptures. Rocks, metal, fly screens, shoes, ring pulls, atmospheres, beans cast in pewter, ‘things that were once useful’2, suggest a layered sense of time and process.

Survival Spell marks a shift towards figuration in Anne Hardy’s work and expands the sentient qualities of her large–scale FIELDwork installations into individual works. Life casts of hands and shoes, articles of the artists’ clothing, or stones arranged in the shape of hands cumulatively suggest living presence. In Being(Immaterial) and Being (Interloper), these elements resolve into fragmented but recognisable bodies that are seated or kneeling directly on the floor, rooted in earth.

In Energy Locator the stone hands on the surface of a table are lit by a fluctuating light source controlled by meteorological data from Marfa. She makes a personal connection between emotional states and the weather, maintaining a temporal connection to a particular location.

'The works in Survival Spell are made from materials gathered in the unstable and shifting terrains at the edges of our attention. The ‘pockets of wild space’ in the city, the overlooked land between roads, the edges of built space I found in the remote landscapes of west Texas on my residency at the Chinati Foundation; the small touches of human presence, ready to be swept away. There is a certain freedom in these places to me. There are no expectations; everything is possible. I see a transformative potential in these sites and materials.’

Anne Hardy, March 2024

Anne Hardy's work Outlier, 2023 was recently acquired by Towner Eastbourne, UK, and her work is held in public collections including the Arts Council Collection, UK; The Henry Moore Foundation, UK; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK. Anne Hardy’s large scale FIELDwork installation ‘Falling and Walking’ is in the permanent collection of Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK while ‘Liquid Landscape’ is in Tate Collection, London, UK.

Anne Hardy lives and works in London, UK and was an Artist in Residence at Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas, USA in 2022. Solo exhibitions include The Depth of Darkness, the Return of the Light, Tate Britain Winter Commission, Tate Britain, London, UK and The Weather Garden, Anne Hardy curates the Arts Council Collection, Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, UK, 2019; Falling and Walking (phhhhhhhhhhh phosshhhhhcrrhhhhhzzz mn huaooogh), Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK, Sensory Spaces #13, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2018; Falling and Walking (phhhhhhhhhhh phosshhhhhcrrhhhhhzzz mn huaooogh), Art Night 2017, co-commissioned by Art Night and The Contemporary Art Society, Nichols and Clarke Showrooms, London, UK, 2017; FIELD, Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK, TWIN FIELDS, The Common Guild, Glasgow, UK, 2012. In 2021 Anne Hardy was commissioned by London City Airport to create a site specific installation, curated by The Line.

Selected group exhibitions include Crazy, DART Chiostro Del Bramante, Rome, Italy and Mario Merz Prize Exhibition, Fondazione Merz, Rome, Italy, 2022; British Art Show 9, 2021/2022, False Memory, Rugby Art Gallery, Rugby, UK and Ideas Travel Faster than Light, Mecklenburgh Square Garden Project 2020; Voici des fleurs, La Loge, Brussels, Belgium, Welcome to the Labyrinth, Marta Herford Museum for Art Architecture and Design, Herford, Germany, 2018.

1&2 Le Feuvre, Lisa, Earth from a near elsewhere: Anne Hardy’s Spells, Survival Spell, p7, Maureen Paley and Dent–De–Leone, 2024