“The intention for the small house exhibition is to explore the process of maquette making in sculpture. Over the years I have always made small maquette/sketches to keep permanent visual ideas conjured up in my head. Some are makeshift and precarious in material, such as balsa wood, blue tack, cardboard, found pieces of woods put together with a dribbling glue gun. Some selected ideas are made into larger works. Other more recent works have been made more permanent, persisting with the small scale as intention, such as a series of ceramics. Recently, I have reflected back on smaller scale fragile works (that have either fallen apart, or deteriorated in the making of other works) and re-worked some former, fragile works. Some of these works and their ideas will only ever exist in the small scale and the exhibition at small house exhibition is a celebration of fleeting ideas made visual and 3D, constructed in precarious materials or made more permanent with precarious ideas.”
“My work mimics relational power shifts. Gestures evoke disquiet including rebellion and rejection. The outcomes interchange between chaos and order.
“Events are reconfigured through the process ofdeconstructing and reconstructing selected materials and found objects. Physically, the works are precarious in state, yet the process can develop towards a risky, subversive strength. The work attests to the fragility, humour and absurdity of life.
“Fragments of memories and past events are often weaved into material enactments. These frozen moments include instances of jeopardy, entrapment, obscuring, undermining or overwhelming experiences. The memories can include selected conversations, which introduce the content of the work, in particular in the titles. Language, for me, is a key to our experience of the everyday. Manipulating memories through material, links to slap-stick interruption for ordinary routines.
“One consistent theme is weight: both real and psychological. The weight of material relates to the body. The anthropomorphic and zoomorphic arrangement of objects is evident in characterizing and animating selected stuff.
“The work often starts from site responsive musings, which encapsulate the recreation of narrative fragments. The installations address universal struggles for the human condition, exploring tensions between the public and private, both in the active and contemplative life.
“The pieces perform as moments of explosive force, or kinds of resistance. I aim for work that escapes control. In its precarious nature the work reveals the uncertainty of our age, the interior lives of others and makes plain inequalities – positing new worlds and forms of resistance.”
Maquettes in Small House Two
SH2 Rooftop:
Shed (or Section of Stored Memory), 2016 – (Found wood leftovers) 25 x 22 x 23cm – Price: 360
SH2 Attic:
Can We Talk?, 2020 – (Balsa wood, glue gun) 10 x 12 x 7cm – Price: 80
Holes, 2020 – (Plasticine) 15 x 6 x 6cm – Price: 75
SH2 First Floor
The Whole Way, 2017 – (0.1m plywood, brass hinges) 15 x 20cm – Price: 260
The Price of Escaping, 2022 – (Plasticine) 7 x 5 x 4cm
Balance of Power, 2020 (Blue-tack, plasticine) 6 x 4 x 2.5cm – Price: 65
Obtrusion, 2020 (Blue tack, plasticine, cardboard) 20 x 14 x 11cm – Price: 180
SH2 Ground Floor
All Over the Place, 2020 – (Blue-tack, wire) 20 x 15 x 16cm – Price: 120
Worms, 2020 – (Plasticine, resin resin-bonded aggregate samples) 16 x 8 x 8cm – Price: 85
SH2 Basement
The Fight (mini boots and wrestling platform) – (Plasticine, cardboard, toothpicks, moulded expanding foam, electrical tape) 20 x 10x 12cm – Price: 85
When You Died, My Life Began, 2020 – (Plasticine, cardboard) 16 x 16 x 11cm – Price: 160
Whole-house installation: SH2
Works in Small House Gallery One
SHG1 Attic:
Benchmark, 2020 – (wood, lead, differing sized stainless steel threads, nuts, bolts, screws) (40 x 19 x 34cm) – Price: 120
SHG1 First Floor:
We At Least Have to Live In The Same House Together – (Clay, glaze) (dims) – Price: 750
SHG1 Ground Floor:
Meetings #3 , 2023 – (Clay, glaze) (dims) – Price: 620
All installation documentation photos of Poppy Whatmore’s artworks in the Small House Gallery are by Eldi Dundee 2023
Poppy Whatmore is a visual artist based in London. Achievements include Arts Council Award (2012-2010) and won the Aesthetica Art Prize, 2013. Recent, selected group shows include A Body A Part, APT Gallery, artist and curator; On the Edge, Royal British Sculptors, 2023: Yobitsugi: Beyond Repair, White Conduit Projects, curated by Paul Carey-Kent, 2022. She was commissioned to install a work for ArtHouse Jersey as part of Skipton Big Ideas in Jersey, 2021 (along with a talk) and selected by Alessio Antoniolli, Director of Gasworks for Invitational – 1, Unit 1 Gallery I Workshop (2021-2020). Whatmore worked in collaboration with Hermione Allsopp in Diviners, Phoenix Arts Centre, Brighton, 2021 with a publication and was included in FairArtFair selected by Marcelle Joseph (2022). Selected residencies include Hogchester Arts, 2023, PADA studios in Portugal; Passengers 2020, which culminated in an outdoor, public exhibition, Unfolding Terrace on site at Brunswick Centre, London and Radical Residency III, Unit 1 Gallery Workshop. She was included in The Royal British Sculptors, 2021; Wells Contemporary 2020; Middlesbrough Art Weekender (2019); AutoFiction Symposium and Exhibition, Royal College of Art; Creekside Open, 2017 selected by Jordan Baseman and Alison Wilding. Poppy was selected at New Contemporaries 2012 where works were chosen for Saatchi Gallery’s Public Collection. Most recent solo show includes Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Want to Go To The Office Party, Stone Space Gallery, 2018.
ig: @poppywhatmore
INTERVIEW with Poppy Whatmore MRSS
Addressing questions about the nature and function of maquettes in the practice of Poppy Whatmore, with some visual examples.
Small House Gallery 
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