My practice is predominantly three-dimensional and as such can be considered sculpture. However the works themselves do not sit easily as sculptural objects, they do not conform to established notions of form and space; but rather jostle in at the edges of art practice like objects found at a car boot sale or charity shop.
My academic interests are grounded in feminism, exploring ideas around disrupted domesticity, home as an internal exile, and the potential for domestic objects; furniture with memories, to subvert, upset, and deconstruct traditional understandings of women’s relationship to home.
An interest in poltergeist phenomena has led me to further investigate the agency of objects, both as inherent in materiality itself, and as an index of the maker/performer. As sculpture, domestic objects perform an uncanny dialogue that can be seen to position the disruption of domesticity as aligned to the ‘feminine’ supernatural. Feminism too is haunted by its uncanny relationship to house and home; the unresolved past returning as artwork that appropriates the language of domestic dissent.
Biography
Paula Chambers has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally; with a back catalogue of solo shows, including Working Girls at The Whitaker, Not at Home at the Art House, Wakefield and Shoplifting at Woolworths: And Other Acts of Material Disobedience at The Civic, Barnsley.
Paula studied under Griselda Pollock at the University of Leeds for the MA Feminist History, Theory, Criticism and Practice in the Visual Arts; this course had a profound and long lasting impact on the focus and direction of Paula’s art practice and academic interests.
Paula is currently Subject Leader for Sculpture BA (Hons) Fine Art, at Leeds Arts University. She gained her practice-led PhD from Middlesex University with a project titled Feral Objects and Acts of Domestic Piracy: Sculpture, Secular Magic, and Strategies of Feminist Disruption.
Paula has presented at national and international conferences on subjects around feminism, contemporary art and the domestic, including Feminist Activism and Artivism at Middlesex University, Decorating Dissidence at Queen Mary University, London, Theorising Motherhood in The Academy, Manhattan College, NY, and at Motherhood and Creative Practice, London Southbank University. She has had articles published in Performance/Research Journal (special issue On The Maternal) and in JourMS, The Journal of Mother Studies.
Solo Exhibitions
2022 – Working Girls, The Whitaker, Rawtenstall and Not at Home, The Art House, Wakefield
2020 – Shoplifting in Woolworths: And Other Acts of Material Disobedience, Barnsley Civic
2018 – Home (dis)Comforts, Dye House Gallery, Bradford
2016 – Transcendental Housework, Stockport Art Gallery
2014 – With Intent; Fanciful Objects, Batley Art Gallery
2013 – Domestic Pirate, Showspace, London, and 64 Wellington St. Leeds
2012 – Regretfully, Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds
2010 – Bird, 20/21Gallery, Scunthorpe
2009 – Precious, Ropewalk, Barton on Humber &
2009 – Bottom Draw, South Square Gallery, Bradford
2008 – Precious, Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax
2007 – Mother! Gallery II, Bradford University
2004 – Gethsemane, Turton Tower, Bolton
Publications and Reviews
Book Chapters
An Encounter with Maternal Materiality: Cathy Wilkes and the Green Dress, in An Artist and a Mother, (2023) Demeter Press
Folding Chair for the Feminist Resistance: Activating Feral Materiality. in Feminist Visual Activism and the Body, ed. Basia Sliwinska, (2021), Routledge
Materialising Dissent: Pussy Riot’s Balaclavas, Material Culture and Feminist Agency. in Feminist Art Activisms and Artivisms, ed. Katy Deepwell (2020), Valiz
Journal articles
The Lost and The Found: Stories for the Afterlife (of Objects). in Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, special issue Trauma and Repair in the Museum, (forthcoming 2021)
The Nightdress I Wore to Give Birth In: Performative Materialities and Maternal Intersubjectivities. in Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, special issue On the Maternal. Vol. 22, No. 4, 2017
Transcendental Housework. in JourMS, Issue No. 1, 2016 https://jourms.wordpress.com/issue-1-sept-2016/
Exhibition Reviews
Third Text Online Review
‘Shoplifting in Woolworths: And Other Acts of Material Disobedience’ An Exhibition of work by Paula Chambers. By Dr Dawn Woolley
http://www.thirdtext.org/woolley-chambers
Corridor 8 Exhibition Review
Paula Chambers: Shoplifting in Woolworths and Other Acts of Material Disobedience. The Civic; Barnsley. By Jay Drinkall
https://corridor8.co.uk/article/paula-chambers/
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 – Mothers Ruin, The Whittaker, Rawtenstall, Lancashire
2019 – Temporal Terrains, Crossley Gallery, Halifax (a Yorkshire Sculpture International fringe exhibition)
2019 – (im)Material Disarray, SNAPArts, Wakefield (a Yorkshire Sculpture International fringe exhibition)
2019 – The M Word, One Paved Court Gallery, London
2019 – Breaking Ground, Patchings Art Centre, Nottingham
2018 – Rules of Freedom, Collyer Bristow, London
2018 – Home Strike, l’étrangère, London
2018 – Travelling Light, University of Baltimore, USA
2017 – Separation, Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax and Dye House Gallery, Bradford
2016 – Curators Choice: Re-Western, Leeds College of Art
2016 – Alternative Art School Fair, New York, USA
2016 – In Dialogue: Made of all Work, The Bowery, Leeds
2016 – Tabletop Tableaux, Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax
2015 – Art Car Boot Fair, Brick Lane, London
2015 – Floribunda, Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax
2015 – Leeds Revisited, Dortmund Galleries, Germany
2014 – BEYOND, Quad Gallery, Derby
2014 – A Day for HYSTERIA, 142-150 Arlington Rd, London
2014 – Feminist Fiesta 001, HQ, Doyce St, London
2013 – Shelf Life, Shed Gallery, Ilkley
2012 – Wildness Between Lines, The Gallery, Leeds College of Art
2012 – Lines of Conflict, Crescent Arts, Scarborough
2012 – Religionis Violenta, London West Bank Gallery, London
2011 – 10 Sculptors , Batley Art Gallery
2010 – Protect, 10 Vyner Street, London
2010 – Frieze Fair Day, 10 Vyner Street, London
2009 – Born and Bread, Chelsea Galleries, London
2008 – A Garden of Earthly Delights, Durham Cathedral
2006 – Outside In, Wakefield City Art Gallery
2005 – A Haunting, Sackville Street Building, Manchester University
2005 – InSpiritus, St. Anne’s Cathedral, Leeds & Oslo Cathedral, Norway
2005 – Beyond the Sublime, York Minister
2004 – Haunt, Sherborne House
2003 – The Labyrinth Project, Manchester City Centre
2003 – Revelation, Ripon Cathedral
2003 – Centered, Bradford Gallery
2002 – The Sculpture Trail at Hebden Bridge
2002 – Hutton in the Forest, Cumbria
2001 – Cuckoo Farm Sculpture Trail
2000 – Radio Halo, Jodrell Bank Science Centre
2000 – Burghley House Sculpture Gardens
1999 – Beacon Park Sculpture Trail
1999 – The Sculpture Trail at Hebden Bridge
1998 – The Sculpture Trail at Hebden Bridge
1998 – Mother Shipton’s Caves, Knaresbrough
1997 – The Sculpture Trail at Hebden Bridge
1993 – Via the Heart, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
1993 – Absent Bodies/Present Lives, Leeds City Art Gallery
1992 – Devotion, Czech Gallery, Leeds
1992 – A Change of Image, 5th Humberside printmaking competition, Ferrens Gallery, Hull and The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester