Kira Freije links the material language and process of sculpture-making to written poetic structure. Meaning occurs through sculptural constellations of the universally recognisable and memory driven; the figure, the domestic, the natural world. Permeating all these subjects is the feeling of desire concealed. The complexities of intimacy, faith, power and protection inherent in ideas of the ‘invisible’ are searched for and sharpened through the work.

The poses of Freije’s figures are often theatrical and evocative, however, the interrelation between her figures is unclear. The unsettling qualities to Freije’s constellations are, in part, due to the visitor oscillating between a witness and accomplice. Very much like in theatre, Freije’s installation and scenography hints at an outside world but her figures are either sheltered by or trapped within their stage.

In Freije’s sculptures, similar to poetry, there is an inherent ambiguity: A word can change its meaning in shifting contexts. Freije’s sculptures follow a similar logic, each figur ...

Leadership and Separation, 2018

cast aluminium, steel, felt, velvet

210 x 205 x 70cm

GIANNI MANHATTAN · Vanessa Onwuemezi BE OVERCOME

Vanessa Onwuemezi (born in 1988 in London) is a writer and poet based in London, UK.

Vanessa Onwuemezi is interested in expanding the reach of the prose form through collaboration. Together with Kira Freije, she has produced the accompanying exhibition texts for Mouthing the living, undetected, on breeze or breath at Soft Opening, London 2019 and BE OVERCOME for Kira Freije’s solo presentation at Liste 2021.

Onwuemezi’s work has appeared in Prototype, frieze and Five Dials. Her story At the Heart of Things won the White Review Short Story Prize in 2019 ...

Mouthpiece, 2019

stainless steel, rubber, blown glass

50 x 55 x 21 cm

Forgetting and Unforgetting, 2017

steel, aluminium, rubber, glass, lamp

58 x 39 x 39 cm

At night they drain murky water from buckets to reveal old rope. Signals., 2020

Stainless steel, blown glass, LED light

44 x 25 x 25 cm

Flying fingers settle, and align over potholes to sound the notes of a silent home., 2020

Stainless steel, copper, blown glass, LED light

35 x 20 x 20 cm

Kira Freije, born 1985 in London, lives and works in London, UK.

Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Solo Show, E-WERK Luckenwalde, Luckenwalde (2022); Drawings, Gianni Manhattan, Vienna; Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall, UK (2021); Monster/Beauty: An Exploration of the Female/Femme Gaze, Lychee One, London; Re-Enchanted Matter, APT Gallery, London; To The River, Gianni Manhattan, Vienna; Via dell’Inferno, Herald St at Galleria Spazia, Bologna, IT (2020); Far Back Must Go Who Wants To Do A Big Jump, ChertLüdde, Berlin, GER; Mouthing the living, undetected, on breeze or breath, Soft Opening Herald Street, London, UK; The Garden, Royal Academy, London, UK (2019); Companion to a Fall, Turf Projects, Croydon, UK; The Violence of an Imagined Dusk, 12 Mackintosh Lane, London, UK (2018); Dead Heat, Kunstraum Ortloff, Leipzig, GER; The Sleeping Procession, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Chichester, UK (2017).