Anya Gallaccio returned to Jupiter Artland with her second gallery installation Stroke. This exhibition followed the dramatic Red on Green, the artists first gallery installation at Jupiter Artland where ten thousand fragrant English red roses were laid as a carpet on the gallery floor and left to slowly rot and wither over the course of the summer in 2012.

For Spring 2014 the artist installed Stroke, an extraordinary installation which assaults the senses. The entire room was covered in thick dark chocolate, lightly scented if not overwhelming. The desire to interact by picking, licking or stroking the chocolate covered walls is almost compulsive. What is beautiful, as so often in this artist’s practice, becomes putrid and decayed.

This exhibition was sponsored by the Chocolate Trading Company.

Biography

Anya Gallaccio (b. 1963, Scotland) attended Kingston Polytechnic and Goldsmiths’ College at the University of London. Gallaccio creates site-specific installations, often using organic materials as her medium. Past projects have included arranging a ton of oranges on a floor, placing a thirty-two ton block of ice in a boiler room, and painting a wall with chocolate. The nature of these materials results in natural processes of transformation and decay, often with unpredictable results. Gallaccio has stated, “I see my works as being a performance and collaboration . . . There is unpredictability in the materials and collaborations I get involved in. Making a piece of work becomes about chance – not just imposing will on something, but acknowledging its inherent qualities.”

Anya Gallaccio‘s work is remarkable for its conflation of inclusiveness and rigour, for engaging light touch which belies its profundity. Through the use of a wide range of materials, often in large quantities, such as chocolate, whistling kettles, ice, sugar, candles, salt, Polaroid photographs and lead, she conveys her preoccupation with the nature of change through the passage of time, the balance in life struck between growth and decay.
Gallaccio has exhibited extensively, including solo exhibitions at the Tate Britain, London (2003) and at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England (2003). Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Camden Art Centre, London (2008); The Eastshire Museum, Scotland (2010); Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2011). Gallaccio’s work is featured in numerous public and private collections such as the Tate Gallery, London; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; and South Gallery, London. Anya Gallaccio lives and works in San Diego.