Olivia Bax – interview: ‘With art, there are so many unwritten rules and I find it interesting to challenge them and break them’

The sculptor talks about curating These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture, now at the Millenium Gallery, Sheffield, her early career as Anthony Caro’s assistant and why humour is so vital to her work

Olivia Bax in the studio, 2020. Photo: Jean-Philippe Dordolo.

by SABINE CASPARIE

When I visit Olivia Bax on a chilly but sunny Friday afternoon in her London studio, she has barely had time to catch her breath: teaching in Cheltenham, at the University of Gloucestershire, on two consecutive days, then getting the train to Sheffield to attend the opening of These Mad Hybrids, the exhibition she curated at the Millennium Galleries of Sheffield, then back to London and her studio. Busy is a natural state for Bax: last year alone, she had four solo exhibitions, in the middle of which was the opening of the first manifestation of These Mad Hybrids at the Royal West of England Academy (RWA). I ask her how it felt, seeing the exhibition come together for a second time in a different space.

These Mad Hybrids, featuring: Caroline Achaintre, Eric Bainbridge, Phyllida Barlow, Olivia Bax, John Hoyland, Hew Locke, Anna Reading, Jessi Reaves, Andrew Sabin, John Summers and Chiffon Thomas. Installation view at RWA, Bristol, 2024. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

“It was really humbling,” she replies. “The show looked excellent at the RWA, in a traditional room with classical architecture. The Millenium Galleries in Sheffield presented the exact opposite – a 1990s construction, just one big white room with a grey floor. It was interesting to see how well the sculptures could adapt to a completely different architecture. I was having a conversation this morning with John Summers, one of the artists, and he said walking into the Millennium Galleries it’s like the first time you see or smell something – the works have this raw, primitive quality.”

I ask if architecture is important in her work. “Absolutely,” she says. “I think about architecture all the time: windows, balconies, doorways, fences – I call them ‘extensions’. When I’m invited for a solo show, my first approach is to consider how the space is navigated architecturally.” Her solo exhibition Handrailing, which took place at the New Art Centre at Roche Court Sculpture Park in Salisbury, was, she says, a great opportunity. “It’s such a theatrical space – there’s a historic orangery and then a modern wing where one wall is made of glass, almost like a vitrine you can walk into. It’s a commercial art gallery, but it feels like a National Trust site, situated in beautiful English landscape. The sculptures in the ground are from a period I am familiar with through working with Anthony Caro and it felt like my sculptures were presenting back to them.”

Olivia Bax: Handrailing, 2024-25. Solo exhibition at New Art Centre, Roche Court in collaboration with Sid Motion Gallery. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

As we sip our herbal teas, I point to a sculpture that I am seated next to, which I recognise from the photos of the Roche Court exhibition. It is missing its top part, which is nonchalantly placed on the ground. Why did Bax take it apart?

“I think of my sculptures behaving in a certain way in each exhibition venue. The sculpture Great Catch worked at Roche Court, showing off to the sculpture garden outside, being confident and a little ridiculous.”

Olivia Bax. Great Catch, 2024. Steel, chicken wire, plaster, paper, epoxy clay, PVA, household paint, steel funnels, drain covers, tent hooks, beach ball, 213 x 140 x 166 cm. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

I glance again at Great Catch (2024), which looks anything but confident, its red ball-shaped body kind and humble and not like the monumental work it once was. I ask how she combines the monumentality of her sculptures and that sense of playfulness. How does she decide the scale? Bax thinks for a moment, then corrects me. “I suppose a lot of my sculptures are big, they are larger than I am, but I don’t consider them monumental. If I had a bigger studio or a double door, I would be tempted to make gigantic work; it excites me working on something that’s much larger than me. I think artists have a scale that feels natural to them and, for me, the scale is embedded in practicalities. I like to work on my own and figure things out by myself. My work is born out of the question: ‘How can I do that?’ I like it when the work feels big and almost unmanageable but is still light enough to move by myself, cut up again, rework and reimagine.”

So, how did These Mad Hybrids come about? “Sam Cornish and Wiz Patterson Kelly from the John Hoyland Estate visited the exhibition I had at Standpoint Gallery after winning the Mark Tanner Award in 2019. Sam thought I would like to see the John Hoyland ceramics after seeing my large sculpture Kingpin. I went to see the ceramics and was pleasantly surprised: they looked so contemporary! All this time they were in Hoyland’s studio on custom-built shelves, and a few were in his neighbouring apartment. I was surprised that they hadn’t been shown, especially since clay and ceramics have been getting more attention than arguably any other material in the last decade. I thought that the right context to present them would be with other sculptures, as a way of demonstrating their relevance to other artists working in sculpture today.”

Olivia Bax. Kingpin, 2020. Steel, polystyrene, chicken wire, foam, newspaper, UV resistant PVA, paint, plaster, funnels, powder coated steel stands, 270 x 450 x 250 cm. Photo: Rebecca Larkin.

How did she select the other artists, I ask. “We had a few pointers, I suppose. We didn’t want to show them in relation to other ceramics; so many survey shows are related to clay, and we were more interested in what the Hoyland sculptures could do beyond only their materiality. We were led by the text that John Hoyland wrote about the works, calling them ‘these mad hybrids’, seeing them as objects full of irony and humour. I felt that he was working intuitively, using colour as a material and responding to how awkward they were. That made it quite easy to find other sculptors: artists who work organically with material and are addressing hybridity in different ways.

These Mad Hybrids, featuring: Caroline Achaintre, Eric Bainbridge, Phyllida Barlow, Olivia Bax, John Hoyland, Hew Locke, Anna Reading, Jessi Reaves, Andrew Sabin, John Summers and Chiffon Thomas. Installation view at RWA, Bristol, 2024. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

Bax shows me the exhibition catalogue, for which she wrote the text about the ceramics in relation to the contemporary sculptures on show.

Didn’t she write that people are afraid of colour in sculpture, I ask. “Yes!” she says. “There is a discomfort around sculpture and colour. We see white as having a purity and seriousness, but many classical sculptures had colour. People assume that I am painting sculpture, and that I am a painter-sculptor, as if it is only painters who are interested in colour! But colour is mixed into my material from the start – I put the discarded household paint in with the paper mixture to make the pulp, and so the colour is the material. Colour can be three-dimensional and formal. In my work it is important to me that the colour is not just decorative. Many artists in These Mad Hybrids think about colour as a material too.

I can see Bax fire up. Is playing with conventions important to her? “Absolutely. With art, there are so many unwritten rules and I find it interesting to challenge them and break them. One of the artists in the exhibition, Jessi Reaves, studied painting, then went to learn upholstery. In her consequent sculptures, she borrows the principles of furniture upholstery. Reaves understands how materials work, but she pulls those principles apart. You must learn the rules first, and then you have the freedom to break them.”

I get the feeling that Bax laughs a lot, with others but also in herself. I hesitate to ask how this sense of humour chimed with her working as Caro’s assistant. Since working for Caro was a large part of Bax’s early career, I ask her anyway, qualifying that, of course, I am careful in placing her work in the context of that of an older, male artist, but his work is so solemn, so serious. Bax waves away my apologies with a mischievous smile.

“I don’t mind being placed in the context of Caro! He is part of the legacy of British sculpture and while the work was often heavy and kind of macho, he had a wicked sense of humour! He loved to gossip, as do I. It’s maybe less obvious in his work. I think that humour is important for so many reasons. The field of art, the whole performance of it is kind of absurd! You come in here every day, no one is telling you to do it, and you decide what to make and how to make it and where it might go. The whole activity is kind of hilarious, self-led and, if you’re not careful, deeply egotistical. It’s good to be aware of its absurdity.”

These Mad Hybrids, featuring: Caroline Achaintre, Eric Bainbridge, Phyllida Barlow, Olivia Bax, John Hoyland, Hew Locke, Anna Reading, Jessi Reaves, Andrew Sabin, John Summers and Chiffon Thomas. Installation view at RWA, Bristol, 2024. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

She pauses for a moment. Maybe it’s easier to keep the work light-hearted when the medium is sculpture, I say. “Sculpture is the more ridiculous artform, it gets in the way, and it is awkward,” she replies. “Painting will always be superior and sculpture will remain the underdog, and that in itself is funny. Phyllida Barlow talked about this, too. She said that the subject’s strength is that it is useless and absurd and silly. I think better art is born when that is acknowledged, that it’s all a bit nuts! I also think a lot about the strength of humour and jokes and what they do. If you explain a joke, you ruin it; if you tell a joke and then reveal the punchline you are likely to remember it. That push and pull, the anticipation and the release is a good method to consider when making objects. How can they keep you in suspense and tell you something simultaneously. That’s exciting.”

We sip some more tea and start on the cakes that Bax and I have brought to the studio, the winter weather calling for some sweetness. I ponder for a moment Bax’s clever, philosophical take on a joke, realising that this is in fact a very apt description of her sculptures, too: they hold you in suspense before releasing something, although it is less concrete than a punchline; more ambiguous. I tell Bax that when I first encountered one of her larger sculptures in the window of her first exhibition at Holtermann Fine Art, I felt its effect on a physical level, like a punch in the gut. My first thought was: “What the hell is this?!” But then I was pulled in, I say. Is this a reaction that she deliberately aims for?

Olivia Bax: Floss, 2024. Solo exhibition at Holtermann Fine Art, London. Photo: Ollie Hammick.

“In all honesty when I am in the studio, I try not to think about the viewer. To respond to the thing itself in front of you is the real challenge. But when I am putting the works out there in an exhibition context, I am very much hoping that there is that gut response you describe, that the work can meet you almost aggressively. My colours are deliberately bright and brash; they are ‘show-offy’ colours, unpalatable. The colour hopefully draws you in first, then something unexpected or intriguing in the form might catch your eye. I am most comfortable with the pieces that are like envelopes for other things, a space where other things happen inside.”

So, it’s a mostly practical ambiguity, I suggest, almost as if she is giving her sculptures layers. “Yes. I am pulling from our reality. I am deeply interested in things: what they can and can’t do and our relationship to them. I play with how recognisable objects can be inserted into something entirely fabricated to make something new. The funnel legs that were on Great Catch come from a heavy ladder with wheels. Funnels are a perfect symmetrical form that reflect on movement or a change of state. Putting a funnel shape in an entirely invented form gives familiarity to an invented space.”

Olivia Bax: Floss, 2024. Solo exhibition at Holtermann Fine Art, London. Photo: Ollie Hammick.

I love the precision with which Bax talks about her work: its material properties, its underlying thoughts. I tell her I am reminded of engineering – the way she puts things together. “Engineering is maybe too grand a term, the way I am figuring things out is cruder. It links back to the practicality concerns I mentioned earlier: space, access, requirements. I really like problem-solving, and I get quite geeky about joining systems! And this relates to humour, too: the problems are completely self-initiated and kind of ridiculous. I was always interested in making things from a really young age. When I started working for Tony [Caro], I realised he wasn’t a practical man – he would be the first to admit that. He was more of a composer. He didn’t know how to weld or use steel, so the assistants were entrusted with that. It became a creative practice for me – there was a time when my work was all about joints!”

Composing is such an interesting idea and something that I feel Bax does in her sculptures, too, bringing different parts together. But what is different from Caro’s work is that her sculptures feel more relatable, almost human. The titles of her works enhance this. When does that moment arrive for her, I want to know, when does she feel that the sculpture has this defining character? “I never pre-draw, although I doodle all the time. I am figuring it out with the work and in response to the work. It’s important that the sculptures are their own things to give them character. Titling is important as it is another way to bring people into the work. The sculptures are not illustrations of anything, I don’t want to give anything away. Although I am not sure how I could give anything away: they are themselves.”

Like a puzzle with the title as its clue, I say. “Totally! My favourite titles have a double meaning. I like something clever with words.”

I am reminded of Bax’s accompanying text for her second exhibition at Holtermann, where she wrote a kind of journal entry from the perspective of a transport dolly – the humble support of the sculptures. Was she good at language when she was young?

“My mother was a journalist, and I liked English at school, and theatre even more. I did work experience in a theatre and went to plays often. What attracted me to Wimbledon College’s foundation course was its introduction to set design. I failed the module because we were given the dimensions, but my set ended up being five times bigger, and it had these glass balls dangling inside. The tutor asked me how on earth the actors would get into the glass balls, and I replied that it was their problem! He told me I might be a sculptor.

We both laugh. She was already breaking the rules, I say. “Yes! Also, I was pushing scale.”

We talk some more, about Byam Shaw and the Slade School of Art, colleges Bax attended, and about the many people who supported her work early on. About Caro and Phyllida Barlow – Bax was pleased that Barlow could select the work she wanted included in These Mad Hybrids just before she died. Bax is such an eloquent, elegant speaker and I could listen to her for hours, but it is Friday afternoon and we both have drinks to attend in town. I ask her what is next.

Olivia Bax: Thresh and Hold, 2024-25. Solo exhibition at Ribot, Milan. Photo: Mattia Mognetti.

“I can’t do nothing, but after my show [earlier this year, at Ribot] in Milan I felt the urge to work things out on a more domestic scale. It’s a way to recharge and get new energy.”

She shows me a sculpture on the floor, of two bright green shutters, one of which is slightly ajar. The idea came from a Vincent van Gogh painting included in the recent National Gallery exhibition which features a tiny green shutter. It is typical of Bax to be interested in that small, almost not-there detail. She also shows me a sculpture inspired by Philip Guston’s Shade (1972).

Olivia Bax with a postcard of Philip Guston's Shade (1972) next to Bax's Guston's View II, 2024. Steel, steel mesh, foam, cardboard, newspaper, PVA, household paint, aluminium wire, curtain ring, 36 x 28 x 6 cm. Photo: Tim Bowditch.

Where did the idea come from to make paper pulp her main material, I ask. “I worked in the office after Caro’s death, printing lots of things for his widow, Sheila Girling, and consequently shredding hundreds of papers. I started wondering what to do with the paper.”

I almost want to write that we have come full circle, Bax starting as Caro’s pupil, then recycling his paper after his death to become a sculptor in her own right. But “full circle” feels too perfect a term for Bax’s practice. In her sculptures there is always something sticking out, hanging down, refusing to conform. Taking flight.

• These Mad Hybrids: John Hoyland and Contemporary Sculpture, curated by Olivia Bax, is at the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, until 18 May 2025.