Tutelaries

Details
Works
Installations
Information
Related events

Emii Alrai

10
July
,
2019
15
September
,
2019
VITRINE, London

‘Tutelaries’ is the first London solo exhibition of Leeds-based, British-Iraqi artist Emii Alrai. Alrai’s practice is informed by inherited nostalgia, historical identity and post-colonial museum practices. Through sculpture and installation, Alrai weaves together narrative from oral histories and ancient mythologies of the Middle East by forging artefacts and visualising residues of cultural collisions.

No items found.
No items found.
No items found.
No items found.
No items found.

Alrai’s sensibility towards shared histories enables her to carefully construct meaning around the work she produces using humble materials such as cardboard, clay, plaster, sand and metal. Her heavy processes of patination and oxidisation makes her work look worn and aged, imitating wall textures seen in the Middle East.

For ‘Tutelaries’, Alrai draws from the concept of a tutelary as a protector or guardian, which expresses the concept of safety usually associated with a sacred location. The conflicting settings of an ancient space, a contemporary art gallery and public square furthers Alrai’s research into the displacement of stolen artefacts and their display in western museums.

The art objects displayed become tutelary relics, however, in their reconfiguration they are replicas or false tutelary objects appropriated for western display. The notion of protector is pertinent to historic relics, which today remain housed in museums or collections removed from their original placement and out of danger, and Alrai assigns her contemporary objects to such protection, creating fictional artefacts and cultural residue.

Alrai's installation transforms VITRINE’s unique space by lining the walls with painted cardboard to echo that of a tomb, housing the series of wall and floor based sculptures. Mostly made from air-dry clay, which is burnished with tar paint as well as copper leaf or powder, the pots, vases and nails are displayed on armatures, on the floor and on shelving. This display method furthers the artist's engagement with the physical structure of western museums and their display methods.

By re-staging the inherent identity of objects, both personal or geographic, Alrai explored the histories and heritage of their attached narratives.

Curator: William Noel Clarke

With thanks to Walton Herbs, MW Fabrications and Henry Cottam.

Selected press

No items found.

stories

No items found.

Emii Alrai (b. 1993, Blackpool, UK) lives and works in Leeds, UK. She studied her BA in Fine Art and MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies at The University of Leeds. Alrai is currently a Yorkshire Sculpture International Engagement Artist and had been awarded a place on the The Tetley Artist Associate Programme 2018. She has had solo exhibitions at: Two Queens, Leicester, UK (2019); GLOAM, Sheffield, UK (2018). Recent group exhibitions include: The Rectory Projects, London, UK (2019); Ladybeck, Leeds, UK (2017); Caustic Casual, Salford, UK (2017); Hutt Collective, Nottingham, UK (2017); The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, Leeds, UK (2016).

Tutelaries
Sep 2019
15
Sunday
12:30 pm
Free
Group show

Tutelaries

Artist in-Conversation and Screening

Kino Cinema, Bermondsey Square, London

No items found.
Receive updates on exhibitions, shows, events, and artists.
Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list. Please check your emails to confirm.
Something seems to have gone wrong while submitting the form, please try again