Hi've Arrived!

Hive 3# had two covers, one by myself (pictured) & one by Nina Gronw-Lewis

The Summer Solstice on Monday 20^th June saw the publication of Hive3# visual arts zine; editied and collated by myself and Nina Gronw-Lewis. ‘Hive’, now in its 3^rd outing since the project idea was first conceived by Frank Edmunds and Stuart Rosamond in 2014, continues to grow; this edition of the zine featuring the work of 14 artists. They are; Rico Ajao, Frank Edmunds, Jon England, Nina Gronw-Lewis, Kevin Hawker, James Marsden, Tim Martin, Natalie Parsley, Eileen Rosamond, Stuart Rosamond, Ruby Rowswell, Chris Taylor, Rob Watts and Deborah Westmancoat. 

 

Here’s a reminder of how it all works:

 

“With the ambition of publishing twice throughout the year each issue of ‘Hive’ is guest edited by (a) different artist(s) who sets the theme (previous themes include; ‘Track 6’ and ‘The Wrong Side of 15 Minutes’) for the issue. Every Hive has a different theme set to provide new sources of inspiration and possible outcomes for each individual issue as well as giving artists the opportunity to 'do something different' outside their normal practice if they desire. The editor will also collate the work, bind it and produce the cover plus any supporting content (no mean feat, I can tell you). Each participating artist produces a response to the theme on an A3 sheet of paper/surface in any medium of their choosing, making as many copies as artists taking part + 1 or originals of their work and send to said editor. As a result each participating artist receives a completed copy of ‘Hive’ featuring their page and that of the other artists. Part of the appeal is their limited edition and variation in style created by different editors for each issue. To date Hive has been Spiral bound, encased in its own bespoke box and in Hive 3# it is book bolted with two opposing covers." 

 

Our theme for this latest issue was ‘Out of Line’ and true to its nature the artists were invited to collect their copy in person with Hive 3# being revealed, for the first time, publically (to an audience of semi-bemused on lookers) during the opening evening Private View of ‘The Remarkable Everyday’ exhibition at The Old Brick Workshop in Wellington. Remarkable it was too to have the pleasure of being able to hand so many of them out in person, and made for a very un-everyday special occasion.

 

“We cross an unploughed field (a plane traversed by lines), then thick woods. One of us loses his way, explores, and on one occasion even goes through the motions of a hound following scent.

Lines of the most various kinds, spots, dabs, smooth planes, dotted planes, lined planes, wavy lines, obstructed and articulated movement, counter-movement, plaitings, weavings, bricklike elements, scale-like elements, simple and polyphonic motifs, lines that fade and lines that gain strength (dynamism).” -Klee

Hive 3# 'Out of Line'

 

Hive 2# 'The Wrong Side of 15 Minutes'

 

Hive 1# 'Track 6'

 

Hive will return.... In a fabulous Fourth Issue!

 

 

Previous info of Hive 1# & 2# can be found on the following posts:

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/nonsense-is-better-than-no-sense.html  

http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/here-are-my-bees.html

The Remarkable Everyday arrives at The Old Brick Workshop

The opening of a certain exhibition...I may have mentioned... happens in just under five days time. The work began arriving today at The Old Brick Workshop and needless to say I'm excited! Here are a few sneak previews of what to expect as well as our official press release.

 

The fascinating world of ‘THE REMARKABLE EVERYDAY’ is explored in a new, contemporary art exhibition at The Old Brick Workshop Gallery in Higher Poole, Wellington Somerset. TA21 9HW.  

 

Featuring work by nine artists living and working in Somerset, the exhibition has been inspired and organised by artist and bookseller, Natalie Parsley whose own enthusiasm and love of seemingly banal everyday subjects led her to gather together a group of like-minded fellow artists to share her passion with their own views of both the commonplace and the curious in drawing, painting, print making and 3D work.

 

Natalie Parsley 'Blow Torch' 2016 Monoprint and ink

The show has work by Jenny Barron, Andrew Davey, Faye Dennis, Gordon Faulds, Gordon Field, Liz Gregory, Natalie Parsley, Michael Tarr and Scarlet von Teazel. Working with subjects such as tools, ladders, discarded boxes, old utensils and modern technology has led the participants to create some quirky and mysterious compositions, constructions and installations.

 

This is the first group show this year at The Old Brick Workshop which houses a new gallery space and a set of self contained studios, created by owner Alison Cosserat for use by Somerset artists.

The event is sponsored by local business West Country Foods of Wellington and will be open from 11am until 4.30 from Sunday 19^th June to Saturday 9^th July, closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Look out for the RED Signs to the Exhibition

You can expect more info, images and reflections on the exhibition from myself, here on the blog over the course of the next few weeks.

 

One thing is assured...There will be tools!

 

I look forward to seeing you there! 

 

Enquiries to natalieparsley@yahoo.co.uk Or visit

 http://www.theoldbrickworkshop.com



Let The Light One In

Lessons in art history for the uninterested. How do you make the old relevant to today and why does it matter?

 

 In my personal battles of wanting but often struggling to engage with history, I have come to the understanding that for the past to be preserved and remembered it has to constantly be reaffirming its relevance or connection to the present. In this post I will be exploring this thought whilst touching upon two recent experiences from Rome to Watchet, Somerset that look at the art of the 17^th Century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio whose work is combined with new technologies and ideas in an attempt to illuminate his art for new audiences...

In ‘The Caravaggio Experience’ the viewer is immersed into a floor-to-ceiling projection across a number of sizeable rooms at the Palazzo delleEsposizioni, Rome. Across several separate animations (each portraying a particular theme or technique) Caravaggio’s paintings are presented anew. It aims to draw attention to his work in contemporary way and explores how he created the drama in his paintings to how he created his compositions. It also looks at how he depicted light through using extreme contrast between dark and light, a technique known as chiaroscuro, but also as a metaphor for the moral ambiguities of darkness for ‘wrong-doings’ and light for enlightenment and ‘goodness’.

 

Appropriate therefore that light should be the means from which Caravaggio’s work here is presented, not the illusion of light on canvas but the light itself becoming the medium in which the work is manifest. This in mind, the resulting affect does become more ‘Experience’ rather than mere projection, the 48 minute work is even accompanied by its own composed music by Stefano Saletti and scent courtesy of Officina Profumo – Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella (yet surprisingly, or thankfully none of which can be bought in the gift shop). Knowing it’s heavily tourist-based market the whole thing unashamedly wades further into gimmicky waters, but does so very endearingly and quite imaginatively too, as the animations become their own moving artworks in their own right. One piece animating how Caravaggio constructed his compositions creates drawings on the gallery walls and another leaves you in darkness with glimpses and traces of figures and light within the work. Having seen a few actual Caravaggio’s on canvas, this show is by no means a substitute for seeing the real thing (the projection is good but paint is inherently better) but offers something new, part tribute, part transcription that cleverly compliments and taps into audiences’ familiarity of the emotive qualities in film, cinema and music to appeal to all our senses not just our eyes. The music score is wonderful and begs the question of whether why all art should be viewed in silence and how music may improve, distract or ruin an artwork; an interesting thought.

‘The Caravaggio Experience’ is subject to its criticisms for being novel, gimmicky, commodified or dumbing-down, (it is somewhat unfortunately named to sound like an American theme-park ride) but for its faults bravely offers forward the idea that reverence doesn’t have to come from seeing these paintings in a religious context or even a museum one but begins with an enthusiasm for looking albeit from a  projection, phone screen or book; and if that can ignite a sense of curiosity and interest in its audiences to go experience the real art work(s) or see more art generally then it can only be a good thing. I’m of the opinion that the art world should be conscious not to dumb-down to appeal to wider audiences but does need to try new ways of presenting the idea that with ‘the greater the challenge in reading art’ comes ‘greater reward’ to encourage new and returning audiences to experience art.

 

Elsewhere in a shipping container in sunny Watchet (better known as Contains Art)...visitors can experience another example of how ideas and techniques in Caravaggio’s paintings have been interpreted into new contemporary paintings and drawings. In 2012 James Marsden began making work depicting people using their mobile phones, locked into the world within their mobiles each individual oblivious to the presence of the others around them. This loss of direct human to human interaction being replaced with mobile technologies has generated increasing debate amongst writers, theorists and psychologists as to whether technology has brought us closer together or further apart. Marsden’s work gives visual form to this debate, the figures in his portraits hold aloft their phones with fixed, often neutral expressions so it is hard to tell exactly what they are thinking or doing; devoid of interaction with anything else beyond the screen. It is a truth of our times with the long-term effects of these new human to phone relationships yet to be determined. Is the loss of social interaction any different to how people felt when the book was first invented?

 

James Marsden 'Detachment' Oil on Canvas. 240 x 200cm.

 This outward looking and self-scrutiny echoes trends elsewhere which call us to be less dependent on our phones and more 'mindful'. It is apt therefore that to counterbalance the high-technology observed in his work that it should be told through the medium of oil paint and even more ancient, silver point. Thus the human element so devoid in the people on their phones is present in the artist’s hand, of timely, painstakingly and intently capturing their portraits in oil paint. Stylistically influenced by Caravaggio and old master’s painting techniques, these paintings are intentionally built up in a similar process of layers, glazes and colour palette so that they have a sense of richness and glow to their surfaces [The history of human imagery almost being an evolution of surfaces themselves, from pigment to pixel].

James Marsden 'The Fall' Oil on Canvas, 120 x 180cm

The most significant likeness to Caravaggio in Marsden’s paintings for me, is the direction of light and tonal contrast. In Caravaggio’s paintings the light is candlelit or celestial, otherworldly light and in Marsden’s it is coming from the artificial glow of the phone screen that both illuminates and casts shadow on the users facial features. Interestingly however, this light is still otherworldly just in a man-made rather than in religious sense and, for me at least, alludes to a metaphorical sense of enlightenment that is generated from our relationship with technology as a tool for discovery and learning. It is the counterbalance to the argument that our relationship with technology is an unhealthy one. In another series of paintings the composition from Caravaggio’s ‘The Entombment of Christ’ [left] is directly transcribed, its figures replaced with modern-clothed people (modelled by friends and family) used to recreate the scene of Chirst’s body being lifted by mourners. In Marsden’s version the hands which once pointed upwards to heaven are now holding phones marking the shift in what our current society values as 'sacred' and how our notions of mortality has changed from the idea of spiritual and everlasting afterlife to the '15 minutes of fame' and selfie generation. They’re a bit too close in reference to Caravaggio for my liking, the painting and colour-palette is richer but compostionally I prefer taking the subtlety of taking ideas from Caravaggio in the earlier paintings or making new works which explore the violence, passion or drama  of Caravaggio and reinterpreting those themes into modern day ‘phone-rage or passion’ based situations.

 

James Marsden. Silverpoint.

In his newest work, Marsden uses the ancient technique of silverpoint pioneered by masters such as Da Vinci and Raphael in a series of ‘people on their mobile phones’ drawings depicted onto specially prepared surfaces on wooden tablets in the size and dimensions of an ipad. It is a clever play on the evolution of the ‘tablet’ from being an object to write or draw on, to its modern-day equivalent which does everything. Whereas the paintings sit more awkwardly between not being a highly polished Caravaggio and a loser modern interpretation the silverpoint images here are much more suited to being inbetween high realism and loosely drawn. They bring a more human element to the scenes they depict, the time and patience taken to create each one an important contrast to the immediacy of the ‘selfie’ or ipad photo. Most importantly however, these works will last hundreds of years after their ipad predecessors are long obsolete and this is the most rewarding message in Marsden’s work; not the critique or judgement whether technology is good or bad for us, but that good art will always have permanence and a preservation to ways of seeing/experiencing the world that has already proven historically to in many cases outlive and be held with more reverence than that of technology as Caravaggio and many other artists, musicians and writers have shown though the immortality of their works. Through both of these exhibitions, it is how we utilise both that will prove the longevity of both.

 

"The sacredness of both life and art does not have to mean something cosmic and otherworldly-it emerges quite naturally when we cultivate compassionate responsive modes of relating to the world and each other." -Suzi Gablik

 

‘The Caravaggio Experience’ at Palazzo Esposizioni, Rome is on until July 3^rd: http://english.palazzoesposizioni.it/categorie/exhibition-caravaggio-experience

‘James Marsden: Thousand Year Series’ at Contains Art, Watchet until June 26^th: http://www.containsart.co.uk/

 

 *Images sourced from: http://www.jamesmarsdenart.co.uk/ and http://english.palazzoesposizioni.it

Scissors, paper & glue!

Teachers on a limited materials budget throughout the land rejoice as the variety of things you can do with a sheet of cardboard and bottle of PVA is demonstrated with staggering, inventive aplomb in Michael Beutler's 'Pump House' on show now at Spike Island!



Michael Beutler 'Haus Beutler' (2014/16) Mixed media.

Industrial alongside low budget materials such as paper, string, sticky-tape, cloth, timber and yes, copious amounts of PVA glue are used by Beutler and his team to create large-scale, ambitious and immersive spaces. For his first solo exhibition in a gallery in the UK the German born artist tailors his work to fit the former Tea Factory space that is now Spike Island; here cardboard is rolled, scrunched, wrapped and overlapped to create walls, panels, lights and free-standing architectural forms or prototypes. The resulting work is temporary and bordering between the precarious and surprisingly robust as the limits to how these common-place materials can be recycled and manipulated is inventively explored. Its professional amateurism let loose, in what is the first of what I anticipate to be many more oxymoron’s used to describe what Beutler has achieved in bringing Pump House to Bristol's Spike Island. 

 'Tea Factory' (2016) Card, dye, rope, metal pipes, pulleys.

Cardboard painted tubes in one area of the gallery, titled ‘Tea Factory’ are one example of how play and low-tech experimentation with paper to create structure and form can become vastly transformed when the boundaries of scale and volume are pushed; the throw-away nature of these materials now becomes more sculptural, more weighty and architectural. Are they arches, bridges or Christmas crackers, I'm contentedly uncertain...Walls within ‘Haus Beutler’ (2014/16) become abstract, patch-work quilt like collages, blurring the distinction between abstract surface and structure. All of it is a form of serious or extreme play. I.e. If you could take a humble rag rug or toilet-roll archway/bridge and make another one on a grand scale then it adopts a new sense of purposefulness, celebration of the material properties the materials contain. For example cloth is malleable, can be stained, stretched, scrunched, compacted; it has a tension to it, all of which are properties that in Pump House are adopted into large scale building techniques (the cloth becomes bricks for building).  

It is always refreshing to see art that is fun and walking in and around Pump House feels like being a participant more than a spectator to the work; watching other people inhabit these unusual paper-lined walls feels like being in the art work. As previously alluded to I also like the contradiction of everything in the spaces looking very hand-made and unpolished yet being aware through watching the video pieces (dotted throughout the installation) that it has actually taken a huge amount of team work/effort to create all the stuff in it. It’s a testament to making and the construction and attributes that come with a creative process.

'Haus Beutler' (2014/16) Mixed media. (detail)

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about comparing the work to Phyllida Barlow here; I will not compare Michael Beutler to Phyllida Barlow. I will not compare Michael Beutler to Phyllida Barlow. I will not compare Michael Beutler to Phyllida Barlow....But, I think it is almost impossible not to see similarities between the two artist’s works!!! I’m sorry. Originality being only undetected plagiarism aside, both artists use low-grade materials to create abstract, often unstable looking forms that can be walked in or around by their audience. I think the crucial differences between the two being that Barlow is more of a painter and Beutler is much more context and process driven; the materials often coming from off the site they are built in and thus transformed back into their original environments in an altered state; the central piece in the exhibition alluding to Spike Island’s original use as a tea factory also echoed in the use of tea-bag bricks throughout. The processes of how the components in his installations are made is also often more ingenious than the result and within Pump House a variety of Heath Robinson style contraptions which have been designed to mass-produce walls of wavy, shiney corrugated card are displayed alongside the resulting constructions themselves (and believe me they are quite wacky, but they do the job they were designed for!). I think Beutler wants the audience to know how it’s made and part of the creative challenge is him devising these contraptions made from bits of wood and sticky-tape that enable him to quickly produce larger volumes of surfaces and components to build with.

Humour aside, I was in no way demeaning this exhibition when I called it ‘professional amateurism’ because that is exactly what it is, taking low-tech, low material and transforming it into something new, arguably extraordinary,  which retains the look of a DIY mentality. On a smaller scale these things could be classed as amateur but the installation here is so complex in its variety and volume that it must take a team of organising, planning and professionalism in order to pull it off. It reminds me also of Spartacus Chetwynd, a Turner Prize nominee whose work also sought to challenge the definition of ‘amateur’ within art and critique it as a pure, unpretentious form of creativity rather than as a negative; the perceived ‘lack of skill’ in a work of art is a kind of skill in itself. Beutler’s installation shares some of those ideas I think and possibly may make people consider how we define ‘skill’ and what expectations that creates in terms of how we perceive skill and production within art.

Michael Beutler’s ‘Pump House’ is on at Spike Island Bristol until June 19^th 2016 http://www.spikeisland.org.uk/events/exhibitions/michael-beutler/

 

Own Executive Meeting!

In May 2014 'Herman the Chameleon'* was sold as part of Musgrove Park Hospital's biannual 'Art for Life' auction, otherwise known as 'Art on the Block'. Two years on and we're back with 'Executive Meeting' a silverpoint and ink drawing. (For more info about silverpoint click on link at bottom of this post**)

 

Mine is one of eighty-six artist's blocks featuring genuinely exciting and brilliant contributions from Somerset-based artists that include; Louise Baker, Michael Fairfax, Elizabeth Earley, Jon England, Sara Dudman, Michael Tarr, Andrew Davey, Richard Pomeroy, Peter Messa, Jane Mowat, Gordon Field, Tim Martin and Fiona Bradford to name but a FEW! It is a great way of owning a small, affordable art work and I strongly recommend viewing them all before making a decision. Wonderful stuff and all money in support of a very worthwhile cause!

 

Art on the Block is a charity art auction raising funds to improve the environment at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton.  You can support this event by pre-bidding on line from 11th April until 9 May 2016 or you can attend the auction which takes place in the Beacon Centre, Musgrove Park Hospital on Tuesday 24th May 2016 at 6pm.

Reknowned local and international artists have created works on A5 blocks, including painting, drawing, print, glass, collage and sculpture.

 

http://www.artforlife.nhs.uk/art-on-the-block-2016/

 

Lot 34. Natalie Parsley, 'Executive Meeting' Silverpoint, ink. (2016)

 

Good luck choosing your favourites!

 

If you feel compelled to be within a chance of owning my block, 'Executive Meeting' then please place your pre-auction bids for Lot 34, here:

http://www.artforlife.nhs.uk/art-on-the-block-2016/gallery-2/lot-34/

 

* Find out how last year's auction went at: http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/an-end-to-tale.html
**http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/silver-linings-sketch-book.html

Drawing a Week 2015-2016

Back once again! What began with the 'Drawing a Day' project in 2013* continued in a moment of madness for a second time in 2014** and in 2015 evolved into the more manageable, 'Drawing a Week' 2015-2016!

 

February 27th 2015, Mono print and ink on paper.

Despite having finished it in December last year I have been uncharacteristically slow in getting this sketchbook scanned and uploaded online, this is largely due to the fact that I don't feel that everything I produce needs to be made public. Sketchbooks, to most artists are generally quite personal or private things and feature often the most honest and rawest work; some of which is ugly or badly drawn and other works experimental and full of an integrity of purpose. 

 

Against that better judgement perhaps, I've eventually decided to present this project here. Though genuinely still a bit reluctant to do so, I value the opportunity to reflect on them through writing this post and comments from the public and peers more than my insecurities of sharing them to a wider audience.

 

What a year 2015 was! I'd made the decision to do at least one drawing a week, in my A5 Sea White of Brighton, sketchbook -this was as consequence from wanting to allow more time to produce and experiment with the work as well as be able to produce more work outside the sketchbook. In fact images that began life as tests or drawings in these books have grown and continue to be starting points or references to new work I'm creating at present. In variation to last year 2015's offerings were in a much wider range of media, from pencil, to ink, mono printing, silverpoint and watercolour (though often a combination of a few). This was in my view the most successful aspect of the 2015 drawings and the re-introduction of mono print significantly gave a rekindled sense of life, expression and depth to my work. Nothing still quite matches mono printing, for quality of line, chance and sensitivity in my opinion. 

 

March 5th 2015, Mono print and ink on paper.

Other changes to the 2015 drawings were that they were considerably more open to chance in how I experimented with media, allowing the medium to dictate the drawing rather than the other way around.

 

 The subject matter for the drawings followed tangents of thought that were parallel to work I was creating outside the sketchbooks, so for the first time last year work I was making outside the sketchbook was fed by work I'd previously done and vice versa [probably most evident in the mono print works/tools]. They had a bit of a dialogue which I'd like to develop further this year.

 

 The mark-making and type of line was expanded upon from the previous 'drawing a day' projects which was mostly due to the introduction of silverpoint which forced a broader depth of layering/mark-making to happen and has impacted on being more experimental with marks during mono printing i.e. applying different pressures of line to create different thicknesses.   

 

Working bigger has also significantly changed the intensity and surface of the drawings from previous years allowing for more surface/texture/background and detail.

 

Whilst I feel marginally my drawing continues to improve there are still many aspects I aim to develop which include; 

 

Working more/if not entirely from life: In many ways the better drawings have still been those drawn from life (i.e. real objects, things). There is a 'flatness' that comes from drawing objects, animals, things from photographs or off a screen. Similarly a sense of movement or resonance from drawing actual objects may bring a new challenge or perspective to the work -sense of immediacy or 'lived' moment that could invigorate my drawing. Its a challenge that slightly daunts me, but would be an opportunity to really demonstrate my passion for the 'remarkable everyday'.

 

May 28th 2015, Acrylic ink/pencil on paper.

 

Cylinders: Just a small observation, but an important one. I seem to struggle with cylinders! The bases of paint cans, cups, bases of round or curved objects etc. They never look quite right, even when I think they do -I don't notice it until looking back on it much later. I'd like to improve drawing this form as well as perspective and 3D forms generally.

 

More experimental: So far I have been almost solely representational in my consideration of 'what a drawing is' but conversely one of the more interesting drawings from 2015 was the below image; a completely playful experiment made by rolling a ball covered in ink inside a tube. I'd like to try more non-outcome based or preconceived ways of drawing and instead play with ways of making marks. This wouldn't be to abandon the representational stuff but I think it would open and loosen-up my way of drawing that may worth trying. 

 

Work bigger/different paper/outside of sketchbook: I think working outside of sketchbooks is a lot more liberating in terms of having a freedom to make more marks, stain, pour, paint etc. I also prefer the tautness of paper outside a sketchbook to print onto. So more experiments outside the sketchbook and on different papers.

 

Develop threads of thought: It has to be said that all previous drawing projects seem erratic in their subject matter and tone; going from the political to caricatures or illustrations. In many ways as touched upon earlier, not many are directly observations. Whilst this form of spontaneity has been very  cathartic I am conscious that it leaves many ideas or ways of working undeveloped. My suggestion is to take a starting point and work from it continuously evaluating and learning as I go in order to refine or explore ideas/mediums/subjects in greater depth rather than treating imagery to the equivalent of fast-food!

January 21st 2015, ink on paper. 

 

Overall however, I have already been actively making work during 2016. None of which as yet is sketchbook-based, interestingly, so I am keen to reinvigorate this thread to my practice but want to approach it with the new suggestions mentioned above and see where the work takes me. The dark sincerity remains for me that drawing is still a pleasure and a mystery that is very integral to my practice and my overall sense of being/purpose. 

 

Therefore I am once again pleased to present the 'Drawing a Week 2015-2016' project below where you can put to test all my above observations and hopefully draw your own conclusions...

 

Enjoy!



Created with flickr slideshow.

 

 

(Note - you can either watch the flickr slideshow here or if it doesn't work on your phone/tablet then please click on the link below)

 

Watch the slideshow and/or click on the link here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/113459200@N03/

 

The previous 'Drawing Projects' can be viewed at: **http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/unimportant-somethings-drawing-day-2014.html

*http://spannerintheworkz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-drawing-day.html

More Blood and Bone for Richer Terrain

In a new exhibition that opened last week at Hestercombe Gallery, ‘Terrain: Land into Art’ aims to do for earth what Tania Kovats’ previously did for water in an exhibition almost a year before at the Taunton-based contemporary art gallery. What is terrain? Where does Terrain begin and end? What is our relationship within it? And how can it be explored and depicted as art, are some of the questions ‘Terrain’ addresses at Hestercombe Gallery, which has appropriately always hosted a land, garden, or earth-based theme to nearly all the shows in response to the grounds and context the art is situ in. Quoting Tim Martin, curator of the gallery and exhibition,

 

“...It has become apparent that where landscape meets art and art meets landscape is central to our overall vision for Hestercombe.”

 

Kathy Prendergast 'Land' (1990)

The show opens downstairs with Kathy Pendergast’s, ‘Land’ (1990) [pictured above] where a mountain-tent-map hybrid is erected like a tent, but instead of canvas whose surface becomes part map, part mountain-range complete with rivers. The idea of the human element of discovey, exploration and mapping is fused with a visual depiction of the landscape in which it takes place.

 

 As the title of the exhibition suggests, ‘Terrain’ conjures associations with military, surveying or geological approaches to mapping and understanding a site or area of land. And the exhibition broadly speaking feels more pragmatic or scientific in its approach; it has work from artists such as Hamish Fulton, whose word-based pieces based on a three week walk, have come from a human experience in the land but are presented as an experience which has already taken place, then been digested by the artist and processed into the resulting art work. It seems like what generally comes out at the end of this assimilation is remarkably detached, a lot cleaner, more considered, conceptual and analysed than that of the actual experience of being in the landscape. Does the art in this exhibition offer anything new in how we experience the landscape? Yes, but some of it does so better than others.

 

Simon Faithfull '30km' (2003)

Such is the nature of this exhibition which focuses more on those human reminisces of lived experience in the land than works which feel as though they are in the moment. They are traces and you have to really be prepared to imagine and be actively bothered about picturing the likes of Roger Ackling burning lines into card with a magnifying glass in the piece, ‘In Five Hour Cloud Drawing’ (1980) so as not to dismiss it as a bunch of lines on card.  Visually starved it is instead the process, and the lived-moment of creating the work, which is in my view a lot more interesting than the result.

There are of course exceptions, with Rachel Lowe’s ‘A Letter to an Unknown Person No 5’ (1998) is a film piece that records a car journey in which the artist’s hand desperately struggles to capture the moving landscape by drawing on the window with a pen. It is frenetic and humorous and very quickly becomes abstract, Futurist-like, this work touches that most of our experience of terrain is spent moving through it.  Similarly, Simon Faithfull’s ‘30km’ (2003) film projected onto a circle on the floor documents the launch of a weather balloon attached to a camera as it spirals upwards giving a dizzyingly aerial perspective of the land that cuts-out intermittently providing a camera's eye view rather than that of a human perspective. Tim Knowles’ work, ‘Mungo Bush Walk’ (2013) also offers an alternative eye, with a pinhole camera taking images of Australian outback as the artist travelled. It creates an alien-like landscape caught in a mirage haze from the heat of the sun, its brightness likely partly responsible for the out of focus quality of the image.

 

Tim Knowles 'Mungo Bush Walk' (2013)

Even where artists are working directly from materials within the landscape, the work becomes semi-detached from it through having that human interaction. Richard Long uses mud. Raphael Hefti burns moss spores on photographic paper creating a scientific, moon-like image. Art tends to claustrophobe landscape, frame it, contain it and put it in commutable little boxes so it is interesting when artists like Hefti take a small part of it that when altered opens it out to create an image that alludes to space, the cosmos and something much bigger than the spores it came from.

 

More inclined toward romantic and aesthetic connections with landscape, by the end of the exhibition I was craving to go squelch around the garden in welly boots, romp across a field through the long grass or run up a big hill and take-in a deep breath of fresh air. None of the work in Terrain is obvious; Peter Doig being one of the few who offer what will be to many a more, familiar approach to capturing and expressing the mood of a particular place, through paint in ‘Red Deer’ (1990). [Coincidently not my favourite Doig, so a little disappointing as he is a stunning painter.] Along with Gillian Carnegie, ‘Mono’ (2005) whose dark thickly painted flowers sit in a status between decay and mourning and works well alongside Anya Gallaccio’s decaying flower heads behind glass also in the exhibition.

 

Gillian Carnegie 'Mono' (2005)

In being more challenging the exhibition, like the nature of terrain itself, proliferates possibilities and opens up a dialogue into inventive and imaginative interactions between people and terrain. It aims to look ,“...more to the ground, where bodies and land meet,” but I would have liked it to go a bit deeper. I felt it a little too detached from its subject matter, Terrain is a concept, something outside and inside is the gallery where we come to terms and process what it all means. The Dutch artist, herman de vries (not in this exhibition) still being for me, one of the best artists for capturing a sense of a very human reality of bringing the land into the gallery in a way that still feels quite scientific but from a genuine compulsion and fascination to bring the outside, in. I would like to have seen a bit more angst a bit more warmth, expression than cold pragmatism which isn't in all the work but overall dominates the show. Essentially an interesting show but with a little more fish blood and bone, a little more guts, earth and muck and this exhibition could have really grown into something beautiful, unknown or wild!

 

‘Terrain: Land into Art’ is on until 4^th July 2016 at Hestercombe

http://www.hestercombe.com/event/hestercombe-gallery-exhibition-terrain-land-into-art/

Image sourced from: http://www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk