Culture Now: Celia Hempton

Artist Celia Hempton is in conversation with curator Linsey Young, discussing her practice ahead of Art Night, London, for which she presents a new site-specific installation in a section of the iconic brutalist building 180 Strand.

Hempton makes abstract and figurative paintings, sculptures and installations and sound works that often explore the human form and the places and landscapes it inhabits. Much of her work plays with the display, exposure and performance of the body in our social encounters and relationships—both online and in person—turning the human form into a type of landscape in itself.

For Art Night, Hempton creates a new theatre set-like environment that combines abstracted landscapes and bodies, relating specifically to the source of the River Thames; that considers the river as a historical and metaphorical object – one that is ever changing and amorphous in form and gender.

Celia Hempton (born 1981, UK) studied MA Painting at the Royal College of Art and BA Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art and lives in London. Recent solo displays of her work include Lupa at Galerie Sultana, Paris, FLY ASH at White Cubicle, London, Chat Random at Southard Reid, London, and a performance and presentation of work made in Stromboli as part of Forget Amnesia curated by Milovan Farronato and Haroon Mirza, Fiorucci Trust, Italy, 2014.

Linsey Young is Curator of Contemporary British Art, Tate Britain. She has previously held curatorial posts at The British Council, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Inverleith House. In 2013 she instigated the project space YOUNG TEAM.