Feats of the imagination. Feats of craft. Feats of construction. Welcome to the world of Amy Worrall’s Sweet Sweet Fantasy, Baby.
In her second solo exhibition at Norwich’s Moosey - following Prodigal Daughter in 2023 - Worrall [b. 1989] returns with her trademark stylized figures and shimmering colour. But this time her art is literally on a larger scale, and with it more mature, more complex, more fantastic, brighter, bolder, wilder.
Through this new body of work, Worrall explores how a person - and in particular, a woman - exists within and is shaped by not only physical reality but also mythology, history, pop culture and fantasy. The series of ceramic sculptures, paintings and beadworks draws on Norfolk folklore, Scandinavian traditions, Disney cartoons, the roof bosses of Norwich Cathedral, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Biblical narratives, as well as Roman and Greek mythology, to create a whole that is at once chaotic and unified, confronting and comforting.
This exhibition is guarded by The Fates - look up! - a trio of sculptures that hover above as the viewer ventures deeper into the artist’s mind. Together, the three figures ask: What is fantasy? What is reality? And in Worrall’s vision, what is the difference?
- Theo Merz
"I caricaturize the concept of (my) personal image. I explore the fragile and changeable notion of the self and its paradoxical nature.
My work is a weird, skewed vision of reality- digested & spewed out as quasi self-portraits of awkwardness. I’m heavily influenced by folklore and storytelling, creating work that lives in the borderlands of the real and the mythical.
I work with ceramics focusing on sculpture, handicraft, decoration and painting. I harness the tactility, immediacy and unpredictability of clay as a metaphor for the distortion that comes with exploring how (my) identity is formed and mythologised.
I’m concerned with form, colour and connection in my work, borrowing heavily from cartoons, historical and pop culture references. Bridging the gap between fantasy and reality, allows me to be tender, hopeful and earnest whilst maintaining a sense of fun and lightness. I love making work that I’m physically engaged with, my hands are my favourite tool giving me an immediate connection to the surface I’m working with, leaving a strong sense of the making enhances the manic, playful energy I try to capture in my work."
