Oculus Venus (Edition 2/3)
2023
Marble (Venato Orto di Donna, Grigio Vagli and Nero Marquina)
In 2023 Rainey received the Rosemary James Memorial Trust Award, an award directed at makers steeped in material practice. While he usually works in ceramics, the award provided Rainey with an opportunity to work in marble for the first time, through completing a residency called the Digital Stone Project in Tuscany. During this month-long residency, participants produce work carved using a combination of robotic manufacturing technologies and traditional hand-carving tools. Oculus Venus is the work Rainey produced during this residency.
'I often work with 3D scans of historical sculptures from major museum collections. By re-making these forms in altered states, my sculptures become reimagined artefacts that explore alternative histories and narratives. Oculus Venus is a reimagining of Antonio Canova's Venus Italica. The composition in three types of marble brings together the language of masks with a focus on eyes (the ocular). Eyes and masks are familiar symbols in my sculptural work, used as a reference to social norms and control. In this sculpture the round, highly polished lenses take on the quality of security cameras, their setting in a mask-like head suggesting a combination of vigilance and the desire to be unseen.'
John Rainey (b. 1985) holds an MA in Ceramics and Glass from the Royal College of Art, London, and a BA in Contemporary Crafts from Manchester Metropolitan University. He has undertaken residencies at the Digital Stone Project Residency in Gramolazzo, the British School at Rome, and Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. His works are represented in public collections such as the UK Government Art Collection, the Irish National Collection, the Ulster Museum, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Collection. Previous solo exhibition venues include; Berg Gallery, Stockholm (2025, 2022, 2019), Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (2016, 2025), The Drawing Schools Gallery, Eton College, Windsor (2024), Naughton Gallery, Belfast (2022) and Marsden Woo Gallery Project Space, London (2013).