The Double Act (Maquette) by Madi Acharya-Baskerville MRSS

We look forward to welcoming you back at Dora House when we re-open on Monday 3 June.

Our new exhibition will showcase work by Madi Acharya-Baskerville MRSS, winner of our First Plinth: Public Art Award 2023. Acharya-Baskerville's inaugural public art commission The Double Act will be shown on our sculpture terrace, complemented by Caught In The Act - an exhibition which features new mixed media sculptures and ceramics. Artist Sarah Ryder has also been invited to engage in the themes of the exhibition. 

Acharya-Baskerville’s South Asian heritage continually influences her practice which explores cultural difference and gender identity in the context of climate change. Caught In The Act explores the moment where something occurs which is intended to be hidden. Instead it becomes noticed, blatant and shared in public. This is in the spirit of something playful and humorous which is visual but tricky to articulate. Through the idea that something occurs or is placed where it should not be or does not belong, the ‘interloper’ prevails. The outsider is trying to negotiate the inside, observing from the margins but this is just the starting point for subversion, the joyous celebration of difference and diversity. Colourful, texturally noisy forms with their history all over them, Ryder’s works created from foil and paint come about from layers of experimental processes with the intention of defying territorial categorisation and embracing art and life as an ever-changing temporal scope. 

With thanks to the Mirisch and Lebenheim Charitable Foundation for their generous support of the First Plinth: Public Art Award.