The sculptor Jeremy Willett joined artlab in May. ArtLab encountered Jeremy’s work at the Creekside Open exhibition at the APT gallery in Deptford. The exhibition had been curated by the artist Emma Biggs and critic Matthew Collings and offered a fascinating survey of contemporary practice showing new art to emerge in the last five years from a group of predominately younger artists.

As well as Jeremy’s work highlights of the event were works by the increasingly well-known London based Japanese artist, Kounosuke Kawakami and the emerging British artists Neil Kelly and Maisie Kendall, both of whom we have invited to join ArtLab. The exhibition reflected the richness and diversity of areas of contemporary visual art, and touched upon some current critical debates.

Central to these debates is the work of Jeremy Willett. Speaking to the artist in his studio, we explored the relationship between his work and some of the references that seem to be present within it. The geometric quality of the work brings to mind the work of minimalist artists Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt. But an obvious distinction between Willett’s works and that of these masters is the approach to manufacture.

The imperfections within the former’s works reveal its human authorship, a presence that would have horrified these doyens of minimalist art, for whom the absence of the visible hand of the artist was paramount. Indeed, current practice in visual art seems to moving back towards a ‘crude’ form of art in search of greater emotional charge.

Recently collectors such as Alex Sainsbury have voiced impatience with the polish and neatness of some artists’ work, that looks as though it has just come off a production line. In Sainsbury’s view this tendency towards ‘finish’ robs the work of vitality, complexity and rawness. It is perhaps this sense that is pushing Willett, and other artists towards a fragility of manufacture that imbues works such as the series by entitled Avenue with a vulnerability that is both arresting and offers an interesting counterpoint to the sterility of much contemporary practice