Maybe they had an urgent call is an exhibition of new work in sculpture and photography by Bristol-based artist Harriet Bowman. Spanning both floors at VOLT, Bowman’s first major solo exhibition unfolds through motifs of collision, slippage and rupture, juxtaposing and layering materials including sand, horse hair, clay, metal and smelted car window glass. Throughout the exhibition, Bowman pushes her materials to the edge of their capabilities, primarily in complex kiln firings.

The exhibition’s title speculates on the motives of two men who abruptly left their table at a classic car show when the artist began breastfeeding her son. In VOLT’s ground floor gallery, Bowman presents photographs taken at the classic car show, which act as adeparture point for engagement with the artist’s interest in the fallibility of the body and its vulnerability to chance, accident and collision. A table-top sculpture in the downstairs gallery becomes an arena for Bowman’s ceramic sculptures; an attempt to restage, replay and understand past events in a diorama of ceramic, pregnant car bodies.

The car is a recurring motif in Bowman’s work, found in hybridised forms that take on qualities both animal, architectural and mechanical, as well as in the use of welded metal chassis and shredded tyres. In Maybe they had an urgent call, Bowman uses this motif to charge the space with the unknowable possibilities of sudden events.

‍