“We live in rectangles. Much of our visual art is bound by rectangles: billboards, images online, films, magazines, Fine Art. Also, it might be said that we are defined by rectangles: our credit cards, passports, medical cards... Something so ubiquitous is worth questioning, and disrupting.” — Jann Haworth

In the wake of the pandemic, Jann Haworth would begin preparations for her latest exhibition “more simply than usual”. The resewn patterns of our collective lives can be seen to parallel Haworth’s efforts “to make pieces that were softer” as the artist “pulled away from some of the expectations and constraints of fine art traditions: the evenly stretched canvas; the single sheet of canvas rather than pieced or layered; and the dominant Rectangle framework.” Here, process would come to play a more prominent role: short of superseding, the efforts of making would be no longer “in service” to concept.

Globally regarded as a pioneer of soft sculpture, 'Out of the Rectangle' sees Haworth “revisit the residual borderline between Arts & Crafts and Fine Art”. The artist senses a “divide is still present, even now, after decades of redefining and pressure from great fibre artists, ceramicists, weavers and the rest".

Visitors can observe Haworth’s “visceral” relationship to enduring artistic materials – gesso, rabbit skin glue, mid-tone duck-cream linen canvas, and pigment ground from rock. In duality, the hang hums with a radical energy, a tension conjured up in that space between conventional and contemporary curation. Notable historic works are shown alongside newly commissioned pieces, including rectilinear cardboard works whose reflective glass invites participation, a circular stretcher, a freestanding mannequin, and two double life size corsets.

As self-determined as Haworth herself, via their interrogations of the rectangle each work in this exhibition plays with tradition: its omnipresence, influence, and provocation to incite the new.