Francis Upritchard’s Whimsical Figures Land in Copenhagen

New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard has unveiled her first Scandinavian exhibition at Copenhagen’s Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Any Noise Annoys an Oyster presents over 100 eccentric figures that the London-based artist created that look to challenge ideas of the past and society’s visions of the future.

Curated by Henriette Bretton-Meyer, Upritchard’s spindly beings are inspired by ancient art, Asian folklore, 20th century European sculpture and science fiction literature. But while they may appear to represent a different muse from a bygone era, she doesn’t really see them as “personalities,” Upritchard explains. “Instead, I kind of see them as costumes, almost like a coat hanger. And it’s much more for me about playing with texture and color and shape. I often think about tropes of how figurative sculpture has been shown in important galleries and trying to mess a little bit with that, maybe making them more like dolls and puppets and really on the edge of good taste.” This good taste Upritchard speaks of is largely that of “men’s taste,” she says, adding that recent years have shown a emergence in women’s handcrafts.

Upritchard’s sculptures are purposefully cartoonish to further blur the invisible boundaries of high and low artwork, as well as the threshold between a child’s boundless curiosity and how it withers as one ages into adulthood. “When I’m making my dinosaurs, I don’t research it in any way,” Upritchard reveals. “I draw what I seem to remember a dinosaur might look like and go for it. And of course, the longer I make dinosaurs myself, the further away from reality I’m sure they get. And I like this because I think we’re wrong about pretty much everything. To really go down an incorrect path is a fun system for me.”

Any Noise Annoys an Oyster will be on view in Copenhagen until February 16, 2025.

Kunsthal Charlottenborg
Nyhavn 2, 1051
Copenhagen, Denmark