Published alongside an exhibition of the same name at John Hansard Gallery, 12 May – 27 June 2015.

An Intervention is concerned with the carefully chosen use of materials, and their placement, presence and situation within a gallery context.

The group show includes artists whose work utilises material intrinsic to their practice, and those whose contemporary ideals harness those of key Modernist architects, such as Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier.

Truth to materials, a tenet of modern architecture, underpins the exhibition and prioritises material as function to often heighten the meaning or essence of an object.

Material elements are paramount to the work of artists Alice Channer, Ian Kiaer, Kitty Kraus, Phillip Lai and Bojan Sarcevic, with each artist identifying with the material’s materiality. Either in the changing state of a substance, or arrangement of material elements, notions of architectural and modernist ideals thread through An Intervention.

The title, An Intervention, addresses the very nature of the works; each piece intercedes the gallery space and, through subtle means, arrests the viewer to stop and consider the space both the visitor and work occupy.