Read PRSD’s article on Embodied Labour REWORKED here or see the full piece with images on the link below

Embodied Labour Reworked | Epically accessible industry from Adam Garratt

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2023 BY PRSD

Comfortably self-contained and epically aware, Embodied Labour Reworked by Adam Garratt is at home in the gallery at Tucker’s Maltings, Newton Abbot. The show is anything but homely, but there’s a snug familiarity that makes this grittily moreish.

Tightly bound hi-vis jackets sit ornamentally on shelves. And there’s something so cute about them being wrapped up inside their own hoods. They could be cuddleable despite their industrial nature and grime.

In the middle of the room there’s an echo of a plinth. A classical column is printed on clear material. Infinitely dainty, an image of a leg touches the column. There’s so much this refers to – the sculptures, statues and architecture of the classical past with their lost limbs, and the aspiration of constructions for the future, which grow behind their protective coverings while going through their course creation, looking to heritage for inspiration or to turn away from.

Cascading at the far end of the space, a repetitive image is printed on industrial fabric. It’s a wave that invites you to surf or a dangerously intrusive flood. It’s tumbling down; a reminder that construction is on the brink of creation and destruction.

Not many spaces would be able to accommodate the industrial scale, or offer such a natural environment to the elements that make up Embodied Labour Reworked. There’s a ‘wrapped form, tarpaulin, ground sheet and ratchet strap’ sitting below the main gallery space in the cavernous interior. Adam called it a ‘cannon’. The mystery of its powerful purpose is shrouded, presumably for safety or, for something so muscular, its own protection. It’s a contradiction in itself and a reminder of how powerful the small mites of dust… or bacteria… can be.

An intriguingly found object, a tarmac triangle, greets you like a cut jewel as you enter. Could it have been violently seared from its bigger concrete surrounds (possibly by an attack from the wrapped-up cannon)? Part of debris, but individual, uniquely formed and not yet ready to be discarded.

Trains trundle on the main railway between the rest of the world and the south west, or more locally between Exeter, Newton Abbot and Plymouth. The building is well known on the track. In some kind of coincidence, the shocking pink of external graffiti is picked up on a selection of Adam’s sock images. It is a curious connection of communality – of what works within a comfortable, industrial set up.

This is the second outing of Adam’s labour. His Embodied Labour made an initial appearance at Studio KIND. But Embodied Labour Reworked is uniquely developed and scaled and slotted into the new, old gallery space at Tuckers Maltings.

There’s a delicacy to this grandeur that the industrial perspective enhances rather than erodes. One of the major questions is how comfortable we are with industrial disruption. It could be answered by how snugly the exhibits fit in their environment. Or the very human way that Adam engages with and presents his work, where safety becomes playful, destruction is treated tenderly, and the violence of transformation is apparent, yet remote.

list of works

  1. tarmac triangle | found object

  2. wrapped form | tarpaulin, ground sheet & ratchet strap

  3. strap | found object

  4. hi-vis figure | 2022 | hi-vis workwear, screen printed reclaimed banner, screen printed monarflex. this work has numerous forms throughout the space

  5. hi-vis figure print | screen print on reclaimed banner | 5 forms printed in fluro yellow or fluro orange | £40 each

  6. suspended form | Plastic sheeting, ratchet strap & bungee chord

  7. sock | 2023 | screen printed reclaimed banner | £25

  8. column & sock print | 2023 | screen printed reclaimed banner | £50

  9. low pallet with bundles | 2023 | hi-vis workwear, screen printed reclaimed banner, screen printed monarflex, pallet, castors

  10. collapsed print | 2022-23 | screen print on plastic sheeting

  11. column & leg print | 2023 | screen print on walk in fridge curtain

  12. museum crate with hi-vis | 2023 | museum crate, hi-vis workwear, corrugated plastic, castors

  13. printed window cladding units, stacked & bound | 2017, reworked 2023 | screen print on cardboard, ratchet straps | individual cardboard print £10

  14. column & leg print | 2023 | screen print on reclaimed banner | £250

  15. column on cardboard | 2023

Thank you to Maltings Tap house for hosting me in their new gallery space. Special thanks to Abbie for all of the support & to Chris for allowing me free rein.

Thank you Danny for the support leading in. Lucinda for the exhibition text & CAMP Exeter kin group for the work critique on the new pieces I have made for the show.

All printed work for this exhibition was made at Double Elephant Print workshop in Exeter. It is available to buy in the space, see the bar for details - to pay by card go here & collect the work in the space.