ASTREA | GOLDEN DAWN | OTTELIEN HUCKIN | DegreeArt.com The Original Online Art Gallery

ASTREA | GOLDEN DAWN | OTTELIEN HUCKIN

Astraea, the last immortal to live among humans during the Golden Age of Man, is the beloved virgin deity of justice, innocence, purity, and precision. Often referred to as the 'Star Maiden' she represents all that is good in the world and offers a beacon of hope that a new age of innocence will one day return.

This New Year, DegreeArt in association with the Bingham Riverhouse, brings you the Debut Solo Presentation of Ottelien Huckin's artwork, spanning her post degree collection through to her most recent discovery of Jappaning. 

With her unique interpretation of the female figure Ottelien Huckin's artwork contemplates what it means to inhabit the 'body' through layered, powerful, sensual, joyful interpretations. Entrenched in a long art historical discourse dictated by ‘the male gaze’, her practice aims to reveal the figure in an autonomous, empowered way through her new found love of traditional craft techniques; drawing, Delft tile and the 17th century art form of Japanning. Astrea; A Golden Dawn is an exhibition to evoke rejuvenation as we enter a new dawn and look forward, with hope, to the future.

Ottelien Huckin (born 1993, UK) graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2016 and attended The Sotheby’s Institute of Art in 2019. Ottelien was a Painting finalist for Degree Art’s ‘The Signature Art Prize’ (2019) and continued on to be Contemporary Collective’s Artist in Residence at Bankside Hotel, London (2020). Most recently Ottelien’s work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, and she was selected as a semi-finalist for the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) Rome Scholarship Award and exhibited at the Annual Exhibition at Mall Galleries (2022).

"The UK’s Covid-19 lockdown presented a perfect time to slow down, reflect and explore new mediums within my practice. I was intrigued by a craft called ‘japanning’, a 17th century European decorative technique that was developed to imitate Japanese lacquer. It is officially on the Heritage Crafts Association’s (HCA) red list of endangered crafts. I immediately felt that the time-consuming process contrasted perfectly with my fluent approach to drawing. Powerful, sensual, painful, vulnerable, joyful - when I draw or paint the female figure I often contemplate what it means to inhabit my own body. Entrenched in a long art historical discourse dictated by ‘the male gaze’, my practice aims to reveal the nude in an autonomous, empowered and sensual way by reinterpreting old master drawings with my own life drawing observations and intuition."

To create the rich and reflective surface, each panel received 30 layers of pigmented shellac varnish over the course of a couple of weeks. Each piece was then hand painted with gold size, gilded with gold leaf and then painted with Indian ink. Hang in natural for a beautiful shine, and watch it glow at night!

In the summer of 2022, The New York Times Style Magazine featured Ottelien's Delft process in theiir magazine and in this beautiful video:


THE EXHIBITION
4TH FEBRUARY - 19TH MARCH 2023
PRIVATE VIEW: 6TH FEBRUARY 6:30PM TIL LATE (INVITE ONLY)
THE BINGHAM RIVERHOUSE 61-63 PETERSHAM ROAD, RICHMOND UPON THAMES, TW10 6UT

SALES/ PRESS: JENNA@DEGREEART.COM / 0203 701 7411


DOWNLOAD THE EXHIBITION CATALOGUE
 

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