Eric Bainbridge is a British sculptor widely considered an influential figure to a younger generation of established British artists. Initially recognised in the 1980s for his object-based works covered in synthetic fur, Bainbridge has evolved an extensive sculptural practice, addressing existential themes on an everyday level through playful assemblages. Constructed out of commonplace objects and inexpensive building materials, his pieces continuously re-contextualise Modernist principles through a reconsideration of the found object, its material qualities and the aesthetic values associated with it. Carefully staged, Bainbridge's assemblages investigate the domestic and the everyday, while reflexively engaging with traditional sculptural concerns.

Untitled is a sculpture made of stone and ceramic found objects sourced from charity shops: “hunting them takes longer than making them,” Bainbridge notes. Refusing to let an ornamental object simply be that object, Bainbridge takes three and reconstitutes them into a single work. Each element converses with its neighbour, both echoing their shared sensibilities and chafing against their contrasting styles; bands of pink pigmented resin, self-consciously vibrant and crudely applied, re-enact these tensions. By reconstituting these objects, Bainbridge forces us to reconsider and experience them differently – challenging the aesthetic rules and traditions that once governed them, and experimentally creating his own in the process.

Installation shot of Eric Bainbridge's exhibition PLUCKPLUCK

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Eric Bainbridge

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Eric Bainbridge

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London

Newcastle