About

Charles Burnand Gallery presents ‘The Ground of Things’, a new exhibition by American, Kent-based artist Dawn Bendick, in collaboration with FJ Hakimian, a leading New York–based gallery specialising in antique and hand-made rugs from the world’s major weaving traditions.

Marking a pivotal expansion of Bendick’s practice, ‘The Ground of Things’ introduces her first body of rugs. Best known for her sculptural glass works, Bendick brings the same precision, chromatic intensity, and material intelligence to textile, translating a sculptural way of thinking into works that sit on the ground while retaining a strong sense of volume, rhythm, and presence.

Textile has long underpinned Bendick’s approach, from early studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York and work within fashion and interiors, to later experimentation with digital media, light, and glass during her MA in Material Futures at Central Saint Martins. Rather than a departure, these rugs represent a natural continuation of her sculptural language, where colour operates as structure and surface becomes a site of motion, light, and time.

Produced in partnership with F.J. Hakimian, the four rugs on view are hand-made by a Tibetan weaving workshop in Nepal, working within a lineage rooted in Tibetan weaving traditions that developed following mid-20th-century migration. Using techniques such as Senneh looping, high-altitude Tibetan sheep wool, silk, and small-batch pot dyeing, each piece is created through a meticulous, multi-stage process involving many skilled hands. All works are produced under recognised ethical and sustainability standards, including GoodWeave certification.

Curated by the gallery’s founder, Simon Stewart, The Ground of Things offers a quietly powerful meditation on how colour, matter, and form move between mediums, and how contemporary sculptural thinking can unfold horizontally, with clarity and authority, in textile.