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The Nature of Things - Installation

Stofer created an installation for ‘The Nature of Things’, a joint exhibition curated by Sarah Griffin at the Artists’ House, New Art Centre, Wiltshire (2012).

The Artists’ House is a contemporary cottage in the grounds of the New Art Centre (http://sculpture.uk.com/about/). Originally built as a residence for artists working in the sculpture park, it is now used to display exhibitions of domestic-scale works of art. ‘The Nature of Things’ presented a juxtaposition of domestic household items with larger-than-life creations inspired by the ambiguous nature of the displays at the Centre itself, where perception oscillates between display, art, nature, accident and intent.

Stofer’s installation took over the bedroom on the house’s ground floor, where he unpacked a personal miscellany, turning the room into a sort of confessional. He filled the room with personal items and collected ephemera – tenderly remaking the most (seemingly) inconsequential materials into jewellery and autobiography: a mixture of found objects made meaningful through artistry and intention. Stofer thus handed over and exposed what appears to be a very private space to the viewer, inviting intimate scrutiny of an interior world and evoking the feeling that the viewer is somehow intruding into a personal space.

‘The Nature of Things’ was reviewed by Sara Roberts in Crafts (2012): Roberts described Stofer’s installation as ‘insistent, edgy and energetic. Found objects are deployed in new object narratives, cut and graffitied, bundled and bound…objects are collected and amassed, not to be revered, but to be altered and “improved” and introduced to other objects, brought together in dissonance. Process is evident; material is delivered with a wry twist.’ It was also reviewed in Wallpaper (2012: http://www.wallpaper.com/art/the-nature-of-things-at-artists-house-uk/5633).