Reduction Atmosphere. Anna Viktorova

14 September – 5 November, 2023

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Working at the intersection of ceramics, combustion, and conceptual materialism, Viktorova’s practice engages the aftermath of heat and the instability of form. In Reduction Atmosphere, she transforms the gallery into a post-kiln environment—an immersive installation that resists containment, narrative, and resolution.

Using raku-fired ceramics, carbonised matter, and volatile glaze compounds, Viktorova does not present objects to be decoded, but residues of rupture. The works are held in states of cooled decomposition: unstable, unresolved, and reactive. The title refers to a ceramic firing method in which oxygen is deliberately restricted. Here, that process becomes metaphor and method: a curatorial atmosphere in which combustion is felt not through flame, but through its absence.

The gallery is reconfigured as a sealed chamber, light withheld, context erased. There are no wall texts or interpretive cues. The air carries the sensation of something recently extinguished. Visitors encounter not artworks in progression, but the quiet volatility of what remains after transformation. What surrounds them is not display, but fallout.

This is not a space of contemplation, but of proximity. Viktorova’s practice challenges the viewer to inhabit an environment shaped by thermal residue, where cracks, oxidation, and collapse remain in active play. Her work refuses fixity—glazes continue to react, surfaces continue to shift, and form resists resolution.

Drawing on theories of material agency and post-traumatic aesthetics, the exhibition resonates with contemporary thinkers such as Karen Barad and Christina Sharpe. Reduction Atmosphere does not narrate grief or aftermath; it situates the viewer within it.

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Visitor Information

11a Queen Street, BA1 1HE, Bath, United Kingdom
Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 – 19:00 (Closed on Sundays, Mondays & Bank Holidays)
Contact: info@atticusgallery.co.uk

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