Kiki Smith's striking 'Seven Seas' (2012) is a series of small aquatint etchings picturing seascapes. Each depicts a different body of black moonlit water, grey cumulus and stratus clouds, and an outcrop of rocky shore that brings a neon shock of colour.
The rocks have been hand-coloured with stripes of candy pinks and blues, giving the sense of volcanic bursts now cooling on the ashen surface of these tiny etchings. Just as the title suggests a shorthand for all the world's oceans, this series encompasses many of this seminal New York artist's lifelong obsessions with myth, nature and human exploration.
Although this exhibition is mostly of wall-based works, Smith has worked predominantly with sculpture since the early 1980s, constantly re-investing her natural materials with great significance. For instance, two porcelain nymphs sit atop a plinth, one holding a piece of jewellery that's actually a silver rain cloud, cleverly echoing the climatic motif of the new etchings. Such doublings occur elsewhere, so that the fantasy preciously held in these fragile figures is repeated in a celestial constellation of patinated bronze moons and stars that cling to the wall. Representing an animistic approach to the universe, Smith's prints depict blooming flora and fauna, imbued with a voluptuous fertility bordering on the rude.
Drawing reference from medieval tapestry, a large Jacquard weaving depicts golden eagles and marine creatures. Alongside, Smith presents two huge turquoise boughs, bronze branches that provoke thoughts of James Frazer's 'The Golden Bough', a nineteenth century study of myth and religion. Effortlessly, Smith transforms her ongoing explorations of the body and nature into an arena in which to consider the human creation of cultural narratives.