David Gates designs and makes “striking pieces of three-dimensional art, inspired by, but not delimited by the idea of cabinet furniture.” (Emma Crichton Miller, Crafts Sep/Oct 2017).
David’s work is exhibited and collected internationally. He received a Gold Award at the Cheongju Bienalle 2015 and was a winner of the Jerwood Contemporary Makers 2010. His work is held by the Nasjonelmuseet, Oslo and the collection of the UK Crafts Council. David combines studio work with formal research and holds a PhD by thesis from King’s College London having researched the use of talk in makers’ practices. David has recently moved to rural Somerset from his birth city, London to more fully integrate working and living. His work is centrally concerned with how furniture, as a contextually-entwined sculptural entity is connected to the objects it contains and the space is is situated in. His recurring motif is the collecting cabinet; the cabinet of curiosities.
His work has a relationship with agricultural and industrial architecture. Once finding these forms and structures along stretches of the River Thames and its estuarine landscape David’s work is finding new but analogous alignments and resonances with the silos, barns, sheds, and pylons of his new working context; an approach presaged with the work made for David Gates in Dialogue at Make Hauser and Wirth in 2019.
David welcomes invitations to exhibit his work and enquiries to discuss commissions.
David Gates. Concise CV
London
Education.
2017 King’s College London. PhD by thesis. The Makers’ Tongue: Small Stories of Positioning and Performance in the Situated Discourses of Contemporary Crafts Practitioners.
1988 BA hons Ravensbourne College of Art. Three Dimensional Design, Furniture.
Selected awards and collections.
2010 Jerwood Contemporary Makers
2015 Gold Award at the Cheongju Biennale
2019 Wood Awards bespoke category.
Works held in the collections of Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst, Arkitectur og Design Oslo, UK Crafts Council, Cheongju Biennale.
Selected exhibitions since 2010
2022 Beyond Nature. Make Hauser + Wirth. Savile Row London.
2022 Within.Without. Make Hauser + Wirth. Zurich
2022 M2 Artists ASC Gallery London.
2021 Odd and Even: A Collection. Maison Louis Carre, Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, France. Taste Contemporary.
2019 David Gates in dialogue. Make Hauser + Wirth, Somerset, UK.
2019 Sightlines. Stroud Museum in the Park.
2017 Cheongju Bienalle, South Korea with The British Council.
2012 The Tool at Hand. Milwaukee Art Museum. Wisconsin, USA. (Reviewed: Journal of Modern Craft vol 5 issue 3 pp351-4.) Touring USA 2013-14, Philadelphia, Houston, and Portland.
2012 Tankerekker. Telemark Kunsterersenter, Norway. Solo show.
2010 Starting Points. Site-specific installation of two works 100 Legs and Liquorice Straps. Siobhan Davies Studios, London. (Reviewed: Journal of Craft Research volume 2 pp161-5).
2010 Jerwood Contemporary Makers, Jerwood Space, London, and touring to March 2011 Naughton Gallery Belfast, Innovative Crafts Edinburgh and National Gallery of Craft, Kilkenny, Eire.
2009-2011 Taking Time; Craft and the Slow Revolution.Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and touring, Reviewed: Journal of Modern Craft volume 3 issue 3 pp373-5.
Selected art fairs
2007-2019 Including Collect, PAD, Masterpiece, The Salon, Design Miami Basel, Nomad. Represented variously by Sarah Myerscough Gallery, Taste Contemporary
Selected published writing
From In Our Houses to The Tool at Hand: Breaching Normal Procedural Conditions in Studio Furniture Making. In Marchand, T. (Ed) 2016 Craft as Problem Solving. Pp115-132 Ashgate.
History in the Making; the use of talk in inter-disciplinary contemporary craft collaborative practice. In Sandino, L. & Partington, M. (eds) 2013. Oral History in The Visual Arts. Pp 55-66. Bloomsbury.
Refereed conference papers.
Locally-made identities: Interactional positioning in the small stories and counter narratives of a group of crafts practitioners.'Discourse: Multidisciplinary Perspectives symposium' The English Language & Linguistics group at the University of Sussex. 18th November 2016.
"Meaning Making in the Moment: Small Stories-in-interaction Enabling Critical Reflection". To Think is to Experiment symposium, Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London. April 29th 2015.
“Stories From The Workshop: Communicative Practices Amongst Craft Practitioners”. Making Futures Conference, Plymouth College of Art September 26th-27th 2013. Published in online journal of proceedings: plymouthart.ac.uk/research/journalvol3/david-gates-stories-from-the-workshop-communicative-practices-amongst-craft
“History in the Making; the use of talk in inter-disciplinary contemporary craft collaborative practice.” Oral History Society conference, Victoria & Albert Museum, 2nd-3rd July 2010.
“Sweepings; talk in inter-disciplinary collaborative craft practice” Pairings conference, Manchester Metropolitan University. May 2011.
“Triangulation Theory.” A paper written collaboratively with Alice Kettle and Dr Jane Webb. Pairings conference, Manchester Metropolitan University. May 2011. Published in Collaboration Through Craft, 2013, Berg.
Subject of peer review and critical writing.
‘The Journal of Modern Craft’, vol 5 issue 3 Oct 2012 pp351-354. Exhibition review; The Tool at Hand, Milwaukee Art Museum. Jennifer Geigel Mikulay.
‘The Journal of Craft Research’, vol 2, April 2011, pp161-. Exhibition review; 60/40 Starting Points Series 2010, Siobhan Davies Studios, Heidi Yeo.
‘The Journal of Modern Craft’, vol 3 no.3 Nov. 2010 pp373-5. Exhibition review, Taking Time; Craft and the Slow Revolution, Martina Margetts.
‘Studio; Craft and Design in Canada’, Fall/Winter 2010, pp38-42, ‘Making Time’
‘Perspectives’, Sept. 2010, pp60-62 ‘Playing With Time