Lithics
Emii Alrai
03 February - 17 July 2024
Spanning seven years of encounters with geology through topographic site visits and institutional collections, Lithics exhibits Emii Alrai’s sculptures alongside new drawings which mimic archaeological remnants and the theatrical nature of museums.
In the gallery, drawings resembling rock formations dwell in closed vitrines, remnants of sculptures are punctured by their crutches and deteriorating clay vessels congregate in corners.
Referencing correspondence with ethnographers and archaeologists of an imagined past, Lithics explores the romanticism of observation, the yearning for uncovering and the subsequent reconstitution of landscapes into spolia.
Emii Alrai is an artist and trained museum registrar whose work seams material investigation in relation to memory, critique of the western museological structure and the complexity of ruins. Working primarily in sculpture and installation, her work operates as large-scale realms built in relation to bodies of research on archaeology and the displacement of objects from their natural environments. Clay amphora, gypsum forms and steel armatures punctuate the labyrinth-like spaces Alrai creates, mimicking museum dioramas and romanticised visions of the past. Weaving in oral histories, inherited nostalgia and the details of language, Alrai's work questions the rigidity of Empire, its paralysis of permanence and the silence of fracture.
Emii Alrai (b. 1993, Blackpool, Scotland, Leeds) has a BA in Fine Art (2016) and an MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies (2018) both from the University of Leeds. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Drinkers of the Wind, Into Nature Biennial, Drenthe (2023), A Permanent Nostalgia for Departure, A Rehearsal for Legacy with Zaha Hadid @ CAC Cincinnati, (2023), And The Mirrors Are Many, Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi (2023), A Core of Scar, The Hepworth Wakefield (2022), Exploratory Drawings, Maximilian William, London (2022), Sutures, Visual Arts Centre Clarington, Canada (2022), The Courtship of Giants, Eastside Projects (2022), Passing of the Lilies, Jerwood Solo Presentations (2021) and The High Dam, The Tetley, Leeds (2020). Residencies include the Villa Medici, Rome (2023), Launchpad LaB, France (2023), In-Ruins, Italy (2021) and Triangle Astérides, Marseille (2021).
