Born in 1987 in Kent, Aaron Angell graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2011 and has gone on to have solo shows in Berlin and Miami, as well as London. He’s founder and director of Troy Town Art Pottery, which is hosted by De Beauvoir Town-based alternative art school Open School East. Billed as a ‘radical and psychedelic ceramic workshop for artists’, it was set up in response to dwindling access to ceramics facilities across London. There’s huge irony to the fact that colleges such as Camberwell are axing their ceramics degree courses just as the medium finds a new, and very receptive, audience.
Angell is known for quasi-mythological tableaux, ruined modernist masterpieces, an ‘ancient’ boat burial in a fish tank. He excels at filtering epic subject matter through a folksy, craft-oriented aesthetic. In addition to ceramics, ‘Grotwork’ sees Angell branch out into new materials and processes to produce mixed media works in cork, welded aluminium and painted steel. Two giant steel sculptures are based on designs for dog chews. But he’s not completely barking. Studio Voltaire’s vaulted former chapel space will also be graced with ethereal paintings on glass.