On occasion of the gallery's 25th year, Annet Gelink Gallery celebrates transformation, renewal and rebirth with a solo exhibition by Anya Gallaccio. It is her fifth solo exhibition at the gallery.
The site-specific installation Head over Heals encompasses 365 Gerberas, one for each day of the year, strung together like a daisy chain, that will wither and decay in the course of the exhibition. The ephemeral nature of the work addresses questions concerning beauty, the passing of time, mortality and what it is, we leave behind.
Anya Gallaccio (1963, Paisley, United Kingdom) is a trailblazing artist renowned for her pioneering use of organic matter. In 2024, Turner Contemporary in Margate, UK, opened the largest survey exhibition of the British artist’s work to date, spanning three decades of Gallaccio’s radical practice, restaging several iconic sculptures in addition to a new site-specific commission.
Through organic and ephemeral materials such as apples, flowers, sugar, ice and chalk, Anya Gallaccio provides vivid, sensorial experiences of the natural processes of transformation and decay. Gallaccio allows her materials to dictate the ultimate form of an artwork, despite aesthetic or conceptual implications. Referencing the art historical genre of landscape painting, Gallaccio’s work is heavily influenced by her own environment. Past projects have included arranging a ton of oranges on a floor, placing a 32-ton block of ice in a boiler room, and painting a wall with chocolate. Her installations, drawings and sculptures built from burning candles, decaying apples or tree trunks, flourish or whither over time. Fascinated by these processes, she is unable to predict the result of her installations. ‘While I can anticipate what a material may do – and how it could or should respond – I have no expectations about how it actually will perform. Often form becomes disorder; the material asserting control.’
Anya Gallaccio studied at the Kingston Polytechnic and the Goldsmith College in London. Gaining early international recognition with her participation in Damian Hirst's 'Freeze' exhibition, Anya Gallaccio has participated in countless international solo - and groupshows such as at the Turner Contemporary, Margate (2024), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2019), Austin Contemporary, Austin (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego (2015), Headlands Center for the Arts, Sansalitos California (2014), Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2014), Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2009), Camden Arts Centre, London (2008), Sculpture Center, New York (2006) and many others.
Gallaccio’s work is featured in numerous international public and private collections, including Arts Council, London, UK; The British Council Collection, London, UK; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, IL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, AU; Paisley Museum and Art Gallery, Scotland, UK; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, US; South London Gallery, London, UK; Tate Britain, London, UK; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK and Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, NL.
In 2003 she was nominated for the Turner Prize of the Tate Britain, London. In 2024, Gallaccio won a prestigious open call to create a permanent HIV/Aids memorial in London. She is Emerita Professor at the University of California, San Diego.