Your Meaning Not Your Materiality (YMNYM)

Full tour and exhibition dates coming soon.

A new, multi-faceted project spanning 2024-2027 that includes interactive outdoor sculpture (Hospitalfield, The Colab Artist Garden), Solo Exhibition (HOME Manchester, with community co-creation and Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm & Billedskolen Storstrøm ), Performances (The Colab conference at Kings College, Leeds Art Gallery with Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and performance interventions for HOME).

Your Meaning Not Your Materiality (YMNYM) questions what is left when a physical and material form has died, dissolved or been removed. The human-scale sculptural forms will consider the presence of objects, their ghosts and the notion of an invisible double. As a visual artist and choreographer Peake often combines ‘Art’ making with technical processes as both subject, metaphor and source for making.

In Your Meaning Not Your Materiality Peake wants to engage in the history of western sculpture making and casting methods/techniques, then use this enquiry to explore broader themes around loss. After death, absence becomes a starkly strong encounter. By casting a permanent physical form of something intangible, Peake is attempting to make solid something that isn’t there. In this regard, the work addresses the futility of the strong human desire to grasp and hold materiality (or memory) in the face of slip and inevitable erosion, change and re-configuration. The backdrop to this work extends from personal grief to worldwide extremes of conflict and climate change which perpetuate relentless loss.

With residencies and support from:

Hospitalfield, Scotland

Launch Pad, France

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Independent Dance

Funded by Arts Council England, alongside commissions from HOME Manchester, Hospitalfield, theCOLAB, Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm & Billedskolen Storstrøm

So far:

November 2024: Performance at Leeds Art Gallery with MA Students from Northern School of Contemporary Dance (pictured)

Looking at the choreographic potential of the sculptural process of casting in plaster. Examining plaster's materiality, properties, and use of negative space, the work considers the 'setting' process as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of the creative process. Blending movement with live plaster casting, the performance transforms the gallery space into a mock artist studio.

Leeds credits: images taken by Elly Welford. Performers: Tilliana Greenwood, Aoife Henderson, Ástrós Gabríela, Freya Humphery, Hannah Maie, Katy Marshall, Kai Hei Ya. Produced by Fernanda Prata. Production manager: Jim Tuck. With Leeds Art Gallery Thanks to Jane Bhoyroo.