Rosie Edwards’ sculptures come about by two dominant methods of making, which she categorises as ‘Shape -Shifters’ and ‘Apparitions’. ‘Shape Shifters’ are networked structures: grids initially constructed with straws and wire, riveted steel or sprung steel. The ‘inadequacies’ of these homespun armatures give her structures unintended form: their intentioned geometries become un-done through the imprint of her body as they are constructed and handled. Edwards (b. 1981, Oxford, UK) is interested in the tactility and responsiveness of these structures and how their materiality imparts its own voice through the making. Like textiles her grids remain materially responsive, retaining a degree of handleability: they can be folded, squashed, or refashioned over and over, each manipulation leaving a slight imprint upon the final form. The ‘Shape-Shifters’ animate the formal language of minimalism and destabilise the rigid formality of the grid, compounding qualities of hard and soft, sculpture and textile.

Edwards’ ‘Apparitions’, in comparison, are sculptural forms that come into being from the inside out. Often made using ready-made membranes: balls, balloons, garment bags, lay-flat tubing, plastic shrink- wrap. These found ‘skins’ are inflated with polyurethane foam to create hitherto unfathomed beings.

Edwards sees her sculptural practice as a collaboration with found objects, pure geometries and external limiting factors. She seeks to outsource creative decision making by following the prompts held within the objects and forms she encounters – often redundant domestic items gleaned from walls or street corners which impart their own formatting or logic. Operating within this guise of extreme neutrality (quashing her own intentions) she follows their leads. In doing so Edwards challenges the power of Objective Chance to reveal it’s teaching and gives voice to the poetry of its code.

Objects and assemblages reveal themselves through fleeting moments of great intensity that resonate with her own personal experiences: flashes of indisputable synchronicity that leave an aftertaste of spiritual communion.

Education

Edwards’ receieved an MA in Mixed Media Textiles at the Royal College of Art (2012) and a BA in FIne Art Textiles at Goldsmiths College London (2005)

She lives and works in London.