Category: News

Powerful women, fantastical animals, medieval imagery and storytelling are celebrated in this reading list inspired by the exhibition Kiki Smith: I am a Wanderer, on view at Modern Art Oxford until 19 January 2020. Immerse yourself in nature, celebrate great women past and present, and consider how artists like Kiki Smith blur the distinction between art and… Continue reading Reading List – Kiki Smith: I am a Wanderer

Mesmerised by the beauty and scale of French medieval tapestries, Kiki Smith entered into her own world of tapestry making using the latest digital techniques. For the preview night of Kiki Smith’s exhibition we invited a group of women medieval scholars from The University of Oxford. Their discussions about the links between Kiki Smith works… Continue reading Weaving Wonders: Medievalist perspectives on Kiki Smith

On 31 October 2019, composer, researcher and performer Jonathan Packham invited gallery visitors to ‘play’  the architecture of the Piper Gallery. In this post, Jonathan tells the story of this ambitious project and reveals what visitors can expect at the second performance taking place on the evening of Thursday 21 November – a must see.… Continue reading Copper House Music : A Sonic Response to the Piper Gallery Space

“Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one.” – Oscar Wilde Throughout the ages, the city of Oxford has been given various real life and fictitious personalities, perhaps most noticeably by literary figures. But how have Oxford’s young creatives represented… Continue reading Exploring the contemporary side of Oxford with local schools

“Art is like a natural expression where people try to synthesise what their experiences or creativity is. In a way, it’s like a mirror or reflection of what’s inside of you” says Kiki Smith. Kiki Smith reflects on nature, her inspirations, and making art that is both personal and universal in this new short documentary,… Continue reading MAO 360: Mini Documentary – Kiki Smith: I am a Wanderer

Kiki Smith was inspired to create her large-scale tapestries following a visit to the Apocalypse Tapestry in Angers, France in 1976. The tapestry, spread over a number of sections that originally totalled 90 scenes, depicts the story of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation by Saint John the Divine. It was produced between 1377… Continue reading MAO 360: Kiki Smith’s tapestries and Medieval inspiration

Midway through Kiki Smith’s exhibition I am a Wanderer at Modern Art Oxford we encounter a Wünderkammer, ‘a cabinet of curiosities,’ which contains a strange array of forms and materials, both human and animal. Among this curious collection are a glass frog, a porcelain dead cat, a silver shooting star and a bat cast in… Continue reading MAO 360: A closer look at Kiki Smith’s Cabinet of Curiosities

This summer, we’ve been asking our younger visitors what they enjoy most about being creative in, and around the city. Based on their ideas, we have entered Oxford Bus Company’s annual charity competition, offering one winning cause the chance to take over a double decker bus in 2020! If we win, the The Art Tour… Continue reading Vote for our Art Tour Bus designed by and for local children!

For this post, our Marketing and Communications Assistant Cecilia Rosser takes a closer look at the story behind My Blue Lake, one of Kiki Smith’s most intriguing print works. In the early 1990s, having worked on several depictions of different parts of the body, Kiki Smith became interested in ways of two-dimensionally depicting the three-dimensional… Continue reading The body as a landscape: the making of Kiki Smith’s My Blue Lake

Kiki Smith is often inspired by fairytales and stories in her work. Pool of Tears II takes its inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and from Carroll’s original manuscript and John Tenniel’s original illustrations of the story.  In Pool of Tears II Alice, having shrunk to the size of a mouse, falls into a pool… Continue reading Kiki Smith and Alice in Wonderland