Bulbous ceramic jugs hang upside down in the darkened Whitechapel Gallery. Sickly yellow light pours from each, casting cartoonish speech-bubble shaped shadows across the floor and walls.
‘They're not just jugs – they are decapitated heads, chopped open below the nose,’ says their creator, Emma Hart – the sixth recipient of the biennial Max Mara Art Prize for Women. This pioneering award, in collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery and Collezione Maramotti, offers a female artist the luxury of time, space and funding to create a significant body of work.
Hart used the six month, bespoke residency offered by the Prize to travel around Italy. Joined by her young daughter and partner, Hart immersed herself in Italian culture, meeting with artists in Milan, ceramicists in Faenza and researchers in Rome.
Installation view of 'Mamma Mia!,' by Emma Hart.
Issues surrounding family dynamics preoccupied Hart on her travels, reflected in the finished work, which she refers to as ‘a family of jugs’. Each is interconnected in literal ‘family ties’ by reems of red rope, curled around the ceiling beams.
Notably, Hart observed family therapy sessions while she was in Milan. Shadowing psychotherapist Matteo Selvini, she learnt about the Milan Systems Approach – a constructivist method of therapy, that emphasises the importance (and power) of non-verbal communication.
And so the skulls are mouthless; their colourful ‘brains’ fall out of their open, gaping necks, with no lips to speak of. Their stark black and white exterior walls conceal vibrant underbellys. ‘The interior patterns reflect my state of mind while I was in Italy, and the things that I saw,’ Hart explains. ‘One design features a green lady. She might be me, I don’t know. She’s trapped in a jealousy plant and she can’t get out. She’s constantly looking over her shoulder to see the person next to her.’
Thumbs Up Thumbs Down, 2017.
Another sees a tessellation of heads, each crying speech-bubble shaped tears. A third pattern features a tangle of arms with their thumbs up or down, depending on which way you look at it. It's the first time Hart has attempted illustration, and the drawings’ childlike nature belies their ulterior, difficult subject matter.
More grown-up, violent symbology comes courtesy of the swinging ‘cutlery’ ceiling fans, that skim dangerously close to the base of the skulls. Each rung features a knife, fork or spoon, flinging elongated shadows across the floor. The flying cutlery recalls tea-time traumas, and tantrums around the kitchen table.
It's uncomfortable viewing. Many gallery-goers skirt the edges of the installation, hesitant to walk into the jugs’ bright spotlights; or scared to be clonked by a swinging spoon. ‘Awkwardness has been an ongoing theme in my work,’ Hart says. ‘By using the light in this way, I was really trying to think of how the sculptures could affect a viewer. There’s trepidation when you’re forced to step into its projection. The light shouts on you, it spits on you – or it just talks to you. You choose.’
Left, detail view of one of the ceramic jugs. Right, Emma Hart in one of the speech bubbles cast by the lighting in her installation
Swinging, ‘cutlery’ ceiling fans cast shadows across the floors
Left, jug detail. Right, the family of jugs are interconnected by reams of red rope
INFORMATION
’Emma Hart: Mamma Mia!’ is on view till 3 September. For more information, visit the Max Mara Fashion Group website, and the Whitechapel Gallery website
ADDRESS
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High St
London
E1 7QX
-
A contemporary Swiss chalet combines tradition and modernity, all with a breathtaking viewA modern take on the classic chalet in Switzerland, designed by Montalba Architects, mixes local craft with classic midcentury pieces in a refined design inside and out
-
Cartier dials up the glamour at Watches and Wonders 2025Cartier revamps much-loved watch collections, from Privé and Panthère to Tank and Tressage, upping the sparkle at the watch fair in Geneva
-
Patek Philippe brings 15 new timepieces to Watches and Wonders 2025The Swiss manufacturer showcases its intricate complications and elegant designs at the annual trade show with a suite of new models
-
Tom Wesselmann’s 'Up Close' and the anatomy of desireIn a new exhibition currently on show at Almine Rech in London, Tom Wesselmann challenges the limits of figurative painting
-
A major Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to the Tate Modern next yearTate’s 2026 programme includes 'Frida: The Making of an Icon', which will trace the professional and personal life of countercultural figurehead Frida Kahlo
-
A portrait of the artist: Sotheby’s puts Grayson Perry in the spotlightFor more than a decade, photographer Richard Ansett has made Grayson Perry his muse. Now Sotheby’s is staging a selling exhibition of their work
-
From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
-
Celia Paul's colony of ghostly apparitions haunts Victoria MiroEerie and elegiac new London exhibition ‘Celia Paul: Colony of Ghosts’ is on show at Victoria Miro until 17 April
-
Teresa Pągowska's dreamy interpretations of the female form are in London for the first time‘Shadow Self’ in Thaddaeus Ropac’s 18th-century townhouse gallery in London, presents the first UK solo exhibition of Pągowska’s work
-
Sylvie Fleury's work in dialogue with Matisse makes for a provocative exploration of the female form'Drawing on Matisse, An Exhibition by Sylvie Fleury’ is on show until 2 May at Luxembourg + Co
-
What to see at BFI Flare film festival, 'a rich tapestry of queer experience'As one of the only film festivals to explicitly profile LGBTQI+ cinema, BFI Flare Film Festival remains a unique and beloved event. Here's what to see as it makes its return to London from 19 - 30 March
