Olivia Bax’s Cartouche (2023) is a bright orange sculptural celebration of the vital ingredients of sculpture: deftness, resourcefulness and good humour. It started as a commission from a Dutch sculpture park and true to many outdoor commissions, had a laughably modest budget. Bax sidestepped shipping expenses by using the crate as both crate and sculpture, fitting all the other elements within it, ready for easy on-site assembly, de-installation and transportation. Her amalgamation of parts found and made are all active in the sculpture: they funnel and pocket, made one with materials mixed and painted, with parts welded and bolted.

Cartouche explores the importance of containing, carrying, holding materials beyond our bodies in the history of human development. The word ‘cartouche’ has many meanings from cartridge or container in French, to a cooking term for stewing or false lid in English. Drawn to the illustrations of ‘cartouches’ in Derrida’s ‘The Truth in Painting’ of empty rectangles and boxes with items coming out, the artist intends “all its meanings [to] work with the sculpture”.

This work in many ways encapsulates the exhibition MARY MARY: it is about hurdling obstacles, the groundedness of sculpture and its inextricable connectedness to the world; it is about embracing the practical challenges that the world presents. It is also an invitation to be borne along by the dynamism of temporary and moveable sculpture, to indulge in the messiness of materials, in full, brash colour, by artists who are also women.

About Olivia Bax

Olivia Bax (b. 1988, Singapore) graduated from the Byam Shaw School of Art in 2010 and with an MFA Sculpture from Slade School of Fine Art in 2016. She spent her twenties working as a studio assistant to Anthony Caro. She was Artist Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in 2023, was awarded the Mark Tanner Sculpture Award in 2019 and the Kenneth Armitage Young Sculptor Prize in 2016. Exhibitions include: Handrailing, The New Arts Centre in collaboration with Sid Motion Gallery, Roche Court, 2024; Floss, Holtermann Fine Art, London; These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture, Royal West of England Academy, 2024 and Eartheaters, Lustwarande, Tilburg, 2023. Her work is held in the Arts Council Collection, The Ingram Collection, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens and private collections.

About The Artist’s Garden

theCOLAB is an independent women-led collaborative laboratory working to bring together people, land and art by realising artists’ most far-flung and life-affirming work in response to places beyond the confines of the white cube for the public. The Artist’s Garden transformed the neglected half acre rooftop on Temple tube station into a vast free public sculpture garden to give women artists the opportunity to make their first, early or greatest outdoor sculptural intervention to promote greater appreciation of their work in public. The annual programme comprises major and smaller scale commissions and theCOLAB/Royal College of Art/Yorkshire Sculpture Park Graduate Award residency. theCOLAB is a registered charity. www.thecolab.art / @thecolab.art

MARY MARY and The Artist’s Garden is realised in partnership with and supported by Westminster City Council and private philanthropists with support from the British Council’s Connections Through Culture Grant for Rong Bao’s Yellow Path and with the kind permission of LUL/Transport for London. With thanks to WSP UK, Frieze 91 and Mezcal Reina for their support.

For more information, images or to arrange an interview please contact Mary Doherty / mary@sam-talbot.com and visit www.thecolab.art