Lindsey Mendick

Last updated

Lindsey Mendick (born 1987) is a British artist who works primarily in ceramics, often within large-scale installations. Her practice reinterprets the associations of clay with domesticity and decoration, drawing on autobiography, popular culture, and explorations of gender. [1]

She received an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 2017, after completing a BA at Sheffield Hallam University. [2] Her exhibitions have been staged at venues including Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Hayward Gallery, and she won the Sky Arts Award for Visual Art in 2024. [3] [4]

Works by Mendick are held in the Arts Council Collection (UK) [5] and the UK Government Art Collection. [6]

Mendick co-founded Quench, a not-for-profit project space in Margate established to present exhibitions and support early-career artists. Quench is now run by Mendick, Gemma Pharo and Guy Oliver. [7] [8]

Selected work and exhibitions

Her installation Till Death Do Us Part (2022) was commissioned for the Hayward Gallery exhibition Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art. The work featured wedding-themed ceramic tableaux, combining humour and grotesque imagery to explore intimacy and domesticity. [9] [10]

Her solo exhibition Where the Bodies Are Buried opened at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2023. The show transformed the galleries into a domestic interior haunted by references to soap operas and popular culture, with large-scale ceramic figures and furnishings. [11] [12]

In 2022 she presented Off With Her Head at Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate, an immersive installation that combined ceramics, video projections and theatrical sets to stage a surreal narrative around women's roles throughout history. [13]

Her exhibition Hot Mess at the Sainsbury Centre (2024) filled the galleries with autobiographical ceramic sculptures referencing nightlife, chaos and vulnerability. [14]

In 2025 Mendick created Wicked Game for Kenilworth Castle, a site-specific installation engaging with Elizabeth I's court, staging her ceramic figures within the historic interiors. [15]

References

  1. Judah, Hettie (11 August 2022). "'I burned all my relationships in the kiln': Lindsey Mendick's courageous, confessional ceramics". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  2. "Lindsey Mendick". Carl Freedman Gallery. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  3. "Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art (installation views)". Southbank Centre. Hayward Gallery. 26 October 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  4. "Winners revealed at the Sky Arts Awards". Sky Group. 19 September 2024. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  5. "Lindsey Mendick – Arts Council Collection". Arts Council Collection. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  6. "Acquisitions round-up: 90 new works by 45 artists purchased for the UK Government Art Collection". The Art Newspaper. 13 July 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  7. "About — Quench". Quench. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  8. "Dames Tracey Emin and Sonia Boyce contribute works to save cash-strapped Quench". The Art Newspaper. 23 July 2024. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  9. "Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art". Ceramics Now. 31 October 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  10. "Pottery goes off-piste in the Hayward Gallery's Strange Clay". RIBA Journal. 11 November 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  11. Cumming, Laura (16 April 2023). "Lindsey Mendick: Where the Bodies Are Buried; Leonardo Drew – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  12. Jones, Jonathan (7 April 2023). "Lindsey Mendick review – Brookside's buried body is a ceramic letdown". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  13. "Lindsey Mendick: Off With Her Head". New Exhibitions. July–August 2022. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  14. "Lindsey Mendick: Hot Mess". Sainsbury Centre. Retrieved 23 August 2025.
  15. "Lindsey Mendick: Wicked Game — battle of the sexes in a Tudor castle". The Times. 10 July 2025. Retrieved 23 August 2025.