‘Hard as Nails’ is a group exhibition of works by Emily Moore, Maddalena Zadra and Miranda Forrester, curated by artist Michaela Yearwood-Dan.
‘Hard as Nails’ celebrates the unapologetic strength and simultaneous softness intrinsically linked to women and demonstrated in various ways through the works of Forrester, Moore and Zadra. Centring on nails as both hard, cold, impenetrable metal and the delicate fragility that houses the flesh of fingertips, this exhibition takes you on a journey that encapsulates both gentleness and force.
All trained and identifying as painters, the exhibiting artists each expand beyond the historical traditions of paint on stretched canvas; Forrester with her transparent plastic grounds, Zadra’s free form and stitched mono-printed hangings and Moore’s bold tapestry works. Exploring subjects like race, womanhood and queerness along with the subtle inclusion of humour, the works presented in ‘Hard of Nails’ work harmoniously together and play with the duality of the phrase.
Maddalena Zadra is a London-based Italian artist who works across painting, drawing, printmaking, and textile-based installations. The artist’s work touches upon aspects of the tactile and the sensual whilst remaining playful through subtly contrasting vulnerability and eroticism. Referencing a variety of cultures and historical aesthetics, she explores symbolic meaning and storytelling in her practice, creating multi-layered, open scenarios. The artist often integrates different ways of mark making and its relationship with surface, exploring the limits of collage, drawing and print, and inviting audiences to explore their own understanding around the flexibility of painting, and the possibilities of craftsmanship.
Maddalena Zadra studied at the University of Brighton, graduating in 2018, and has since shown nationally and internationally including ‘End of Summer Lights’ at Anderson Contemporary, (2021) ‘N.43’ with Atelier LK, London; ‘Cats Mother, Her, She’, Organhaus Gallery, Chongqing, (2019), ‘FBA Futures’, Mall Galleries, London (2019), and is currently has a Studios Residency at Anderson Contemporary in East London.
Miranda Forrester lives and works in London who explores the queer Black female gaze in painting vis a vis the history of men painting womxn naked. Her work addresses the invisibility of Black womxn in the western history of art. She investigates how painting is able to re-articulate the language and history of life drawing through a queer Black feminist and desiring lens. In doing so, she depicts what the male gaze may not be able to see and in more recent exploration proposes the power of giving the subjects of her works the power of their own gaze and the dynamic the created with the audience.
Recent exhibitions include Poetic Sustenance at Tiwani Contemporary (group - 2021); Abode, Guts Gallery, London (solo - 2020). Other shows in 2020: Every Woman Biennial, Copeland Gallery, London; Top 100 (The Auction Collective), London; When s**t hits the fan again, Guts Gallery (online); Miranda Forrester & Emily Moore, Phoenix Brighton and Narrating Life, Studi0 gallery, St Moritz, Switzerland
Emily Moore, based in London in a contemporary painter working in relation to her own term “wildness” which speaks to both her approach within her practice but suggests the state of contemporary painting through the lens of art history and its current context within the immediate conversations surrounding painting.
Although Moore describes herself as a painter her practice and the explorative sense of wildness can be seen in her studio as she explores different mediums and realisations of what painting is, rejecting the necessity for it to be simply paint on canvas.
Recent exhibitions include, Black Roses at Ordovas gallery(solo) 2021 , Hapticity: A theory of touch at Lychee one (group) 2021 Reclaiming magic (Summer exhibition) at the Royal Academy (group) 2021 An infinity of traces at Lisson Gallery(group) 2021 Tomorrow: London at White Cube London(group) 2020 Being again at Guts Gallery (group) 2020 and Without a painter at Fitzrovia gallery (group) 2020
