Emma Hart

Edition Variée of 25 plus 2 APs

Unabashedly bringing colour and joy, Emma Hart’s upbeat commission for the Modern Art Oxford Café transforms the space generating the energy of a basement rave. Hart's chairs create a crowd of hands lifted in celebration and offer an enthusiastic welcome to visitors. Glass-topped tables and seats bounce sunset shades across the floor, creating ever-changing patterns that shift as people move. The furniture's imperfect circular outlines reveal they were drawn by the artist, retaining a sense of Hart’s hands-on making process. Unaffected by the outside world, the Café offers a space for gathering and enjoyment, in which to feel exuberant and revitalised.

Emma Hart's edition for Modern Art Oxford, Ultra Violet Night, 2024 is based on the ceramic works on the walls in the Café and shows a pair of uplifted hands in the air, a hedonistic moment of transgressive joy caught in the UV beam of a night club dance floor. The white sgraffito outline of the hands is lifted directly from the shape of the chairs designed for the Café - which Hart describes as "a continuous line that squeezes out fingers, and waves like sound buzzing through the body".  This is the first time that Hart has worked with a violet glaze, which reacts differently with the red and orange each time it is used but "magically captures the encounter we have with ultraviolet light when we get down in the club". Each work is a hand drawn circle with a black outline, celebrating the furniture in the Club Together Café. Each is individually cut, drawn and glazed by the artist so although they follow the same design, each piece is unique.