Jonathan Baldock

So excited to share some images of “WYRD” my new commission for @jupiter.edit . Jupiter Artland is a combination of my favourite things – art and nature with a little bit of magic thrown in so it feels like the perfect setting for a gathering of these beasts that revel in the power of their “wyrdness”. All the animals depicted have been scientifically studied as having same-sex sexual relations but I’ve given them the addition of some folkloric and mythical traits as well as features (faces, hands, feet, noses, tongues etc) of myself and my partner Rafal Zajko. I’m so grateful to Nicky and Rob Wilson for this commission. Their love, energy, positivity, and utter belief in the power of art is incredible. I left Scotland feeling so full and inspired after a week in their company. Thanks too to the incredible curator Eloise Bennett @eloiserosie who did so much work to make this show happen. Her love, support and championing were felt throughout the making of the show. Thanks to everyone at Jupiter that did so much that I didn’t see and to @hamish_halley and Jessica Petrie who were constantly on hand throughout install. Love you guys. Made entirely by hand the show took an incredible amount of time and love. The last few months were long days and full 7 days a week in the studio. There are people I could not have done this without in particular my very talented assistant (sister😜) Maya Rutland @mayarutland who has been there throughout and is just THE BEST – I adore you. Thanks also to wonderful @__spent who came on board to help for the last few months - dream team. To @rochestersquareofficial where I made all the ceramic elements. @superstarsatyricon , @knayuk for the final few days sewing when I didn’t think I would get it finished on time. Thanks to @ianjbrown for always being there and helping with so many things it’s impossible to list. To @caliblackwell at @stephenfriedmangallery - you’re amazing. Always there and always brilliant. And of course to my babe @rafal_zajko – thanks for your ears, nose, feet, face hands etc. For being “in” the work and for being in my life. Love you loads. 📷 photo by @neilhannaphoto #jupiterartland #edinburgh

Last Thursday my show 0.1% opened at #LondonMithraeum BloombergSpace .I put everything into this show physically, emotionally and mentally and now I’m slowly gathering my thoughts and feelings on it all. I feel very privileged to be given these opportunities and forever grateful but at the end of a show you can feel like a completely empty vessel. So, for now I want to say thanks and give recognition to all those who have helped me realise this show, because I couldn’t have done it alone… Thank you to Bloomberg curator Nancy Rosen, and @hchiles76 , Jemma Read, Henry Coleman and Caroline Simonsen. My assistant @mayarutland who has been working on this show with me throughout. To @lou_j_barton who has created an incredible soundscape. @rochestersquareofficial where I made the ceramics. @powderhall_bronze for the beautiful bronze head of my mother goddess and Scott at The Scottish Mineral & Lapidary Club for working her lapis lazuli eyes. To @grakenstein @rafal_zajko @ianjbrown and @superstarsatyricon . A very brilliant tech team Tony, kimya , Aaron , Andy, Nick, nao, Elliot and Toby. And my SFG numero uno @caliblackwell And last but not least my Mum Irene who is woven into every part of this show - my original goddess. “0.1% features a forest of hop poles reflecting Baldock’s Kentish family history as hop-gatherers and gardeners. The poles form a maze-like space as they support textile panels, reminiscent of the laundry lines of previous generations. Baldock’s handmade panels feature his mother’s favourite flowers along with networks of trees, plants and insects, symbolising the complex interconnection of family, friendship and relationships. These themes are further echoed in the evocative soundscape by Luke Barton. Central to the installation and inspired by the Roman artefacts discovered on the site, is a personal relic belonging to the artist’s mother - the remnants of a small, clay sculpture Baldock made for her at the age of five. Now enlarged and cast in bronze, her monumental form commands the space. Baldock’s Mother-Goddess rises above an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the cult of Mithras, which was reserved only for men.”

“Touch Wood” @yspsculpture is open until 7th July 2024. Sharing a few pics (more to follow) by @markreevesphoto . Missing this place and @sarahc_ysp very much this week! #coldturkey

Curled up in the studio with 𝘽𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙃𝙪𝙜 -somewhere between being held, pinned, comforted and absorbed. A new interactive commission for my solo exhibition 𝙃𝙚𝙡𝙙 @arnolfiniarts opening 27 June – 27 September. (Yes you too can have a bear hug 🤗) There’s a sound work inside the body; a low, heartbeat-like presence by Luke Barton that extends out into a fully immersive soundscape across the gallery. Something you sit with, not just look at. I’ve been thinking a lot about bodies as shelters, as thresholds… the line between care and containment. 𝘽𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙃𝙪𝙜, 2026 Hessian, felt, quartz stone, coconut fibre, polyfibre, metal, speaker 250 × 180 × 98 cm Photo: Alice Hendy Courtesy Arnolfini, 2026 Thanks to @henrymoorefdn_grants for supporting the exhibition. Curated by: @gemmabrace Studio support: @mayarutland Sound: @lou_j_barton Scent: @lorahemy.in.spirits More soon…

A few pictures from the beautiful Alessandro Mendini exhibition at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art -one of my favourite little museums in London. I’ve always loved Italian design, especially when it slips into something stranger, more theatrical, emotional or excessive… and Mendini really understood how objects can hold personality, humour and feeling. There’s something so generous and human in the work -playful but also thoughtful. The exhibition closes this Sunday, so only 3 days left to catch it. If you haven’t been to the Estorick before, this is the perfect excuse. ✨ @estorickcollection #alessandromendini

All 𝗦𝗢𝗟𝗗 - I made “Face the Plate” (2025) as a limited ceramic edition to support my upcoming exhibition “Held” at Arnolfini, Bristol (opening 26 June). Each plate is made by hand, so they vary slightly. Some more than others. £750 Edition of 10 34.5 × 34.5 × 2.7 cm (13 5/8 × 13 5/8 × 1 in) Two remain. These final two are available now, and only in support of my first monograph- Held. If you’d like one, please contact: Doug Middling – [email protected] All proceeds support the book - and you even get a mention in it if you buy one… Jonathan Baldock Photo by Todd-White Art Photography @arnolfiniarts

Just seen the Tetsumi Kudo exhibition @hauserwirth London. What a treat. I’ve loved Kudo for years, but the opportunities to see the work are rare, so I’d highly recommend catching it if you can. His work feels strangely current- small, contained ecosystems where the body, nature and technology collapse into one another. Cages, boxes, vitrines… holding fragile, mutated worlds. There’s something both playful and deeply unsettling in the way growth and decay sit side by side.I kept thinking about how he uses containment- not just physically, but psychologically. These are environments you look into, but also ones that seem to look back. Little theatres of anxiety, but also of transformation. It really resonates with my own thinking around the body in relation to nature- not as something separate, but entangled, leaking into and shaped by its surroundings. And also the idea of creating spaces you sit with, or inside of, rather than simply observe. There’s a kind of tenderness in his work too. Amidst all the mutation and distortion, something is still being cared for- held, kept alive.

In Tokyo I visited @tokyonationalmuseum and was lucky enough to come across this group of Gigaku masks from the 7th and 8th centuries (they are not always on display). They were used at Hōryūji Temple for an ancient outdoor masked dance drama that no longer exists. It’s incredible that these objects, once used in performance, have survived for centuries. Even in their fragile state they emit a potency- imagine the transformation of the human body in wearing them. I’d gone to the museum looking for Noh masks, Bunraku puppets, and Japanese dolls, but these felt like an earlier language that the others emerge from. Each mask carries a very specific presence or character, something exaggerated but also strangely human. There’s a directness to them, but also a kind of distortion - stretched features, enlarged expressions, something slightly off. It made me think about how masks hold identity, but also how they push it. Even though Gigaku has disappeared, you can feel traces of it in later forms - in the archetypes of Noh, or in the heightened faces of Bunraku puppets. I kept thinking about these as objects that sit somewhere between sculpture and performance. Not just representing a face, but holding something of a body, a character, a presence. Still thinking about them.

Thank you for all the messages following my last post. I wasn’t sure whether to share it, but the responses have made me feel it was important to speak. It wasn’t about blame, but about trying to give form to something often left unspoken - the precarity that sits around artistic practice (particularly sculpture). What this experience has reaffirmed for me is how exposed artists are within these structures, and how little protection there is when things collapse. Today I wanted to share some images from a special visit during my time in Japan so far (just an appetiser, as I’ve seen so many incredible places, objects and spaces I’d love to share). Despite the intensity of what preceded it, being here has felt restorative- like stepping into spaces I’ve carried internally for years and finally meeting them in the world. Seeing Face House in Kyoto (Kazumasa Yamashita, 1975) felt especially resonant. An architecture that becomes a body, a face -somewhere between the human and the built. Playful, strange, and tender. A presence on the street that feels both protective and quietly alive 🏠🤗

I began making these ceramic 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦𝘴 in 2017, during a residency at @camdenartcentre . I could never have imagined then that I would still be making them now, but they continue to bring me joy and have become almost addictive in their process which is a quiet, cathartic exorcism of every kind of emotion. They are also perhaps the closest thing to a “sketch” within my practice - often (although not always) immediate, instinctive, unguarded. It feels fitting, then, that 84 of them now encircle the gallery restaurant at SKETCH @sketchlondon I thought I’d begin sharing them in small groups — and this is the first: 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘝 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘐𝘝 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘐𝘐𝘐 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘝𝘐 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘝𝘐𝘐 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘝𝘐𝘐𝘐 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘟𝘓𝘐𝘟 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘓 𝘔𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘦 𝘊𝘓𝘐 * many of these maskes have been made at the magical place that is @rochestersquareofficial 💚 @carlotta_dl 📸 @toddwhiteartphotography

A special pilgrimage to Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea @castellodirivoli to see the retrospective of Enrico David; “Domani torno (I’M Back Tomorrow)” curated by @marianna.vecellio . I’ve been a fan of his work for over 20 years so when I found out about the show I knew I’d have to visit if I could. It didn’t disappoint. “Specifically conceived for the Manica Lunga, the exhibition unfolds through a dialogue between figuration and abstraction, focusing on the body as a metaphor for transformation. With a layout that evokes theatrical scenography and design displays, the exhibition retraces the key moments of David’s artistic production, including new works created for the occasion. Domani torno is both a personal and artistic journey: from his origins in Ancona to his move to London in 1986, the exhibition follows the development of a practice grounded in the quest for a linguistic universe in which to exist. Through various media, David explores the human figure as a site of metamorphosis and reflection. In this journey, drawing plays a central role as a unifying language, since, as the artist states, “the space of dreams and the space of drawing are both infinite.” Big thanks to @micheleforn for taking us and the amazing risotto after 💚

I’ve been a huge fan of Mrinalini Mukherjee ever since I first encountered her work by chance at the @metmuseum 2019. It was her first US retrospective, and it completely blew my mind. So, I was really excited to visit the @royalacademyarts to see A Story of South Asian Art: Mrinalini Mukherjee and Her Circle. The exhibition includes the textile sculptures I was familiar with as well as some of her ceramic works, which were new to me - I didn’t realise she also worked in clay, and I think they’re exceptional. I couldn’t help wishing the show included more of her work; she deserves an exhibition on a much larger scale, similar to the Met show here in London. She is a truly brilliant artist, and I can’t wait to see more of her work at @hepworthwakefield later this year. @mrinalinimukherjee.foundation #mrinalinimukherjee Mukherjee