Ellard & Johnstone: Everything Made Bronze

A study of the way light burnishes objects and magnifies form. The installation includes a 16mm film and sculpture that makes compelling use of two contrasting but related locations: Carlo Scarpa’s famous Gipsoteca plaster-cast gallery in the Museo Canova in northern Italy, and the Venice-based plaster workshops of Eugenio De Luigi, one of Scarpa’s most important collaborators.

The Gipsoteca’s architecture suggests poise, stillness and undisturbed contemplation while its dependence on natural light means it is in continual flux. The film follows the sudden changes in the gallery’s play of light as the sun is veiled in cloud or suddenly reappears to bathe the space – and Canova’s sculptures – in a warm, gilded luminescence.