23 Dec 2023
Embody
Photo etching steel plates

Embody A rather unsuccesful attempt to transfer the Three graces plastic bottle image onto a steel plate using a halftone digital image and blue sticky stuff that is a light sensitive emulsion. The halftone dots were etched into the plate using a Nitric acid bath for about 1 hour. The dot size was made large using one screen of a colour halftone and then lowering the resolution to about 40 dpi. Inked up and printed onto cheap paper with the etching press. Hmm, results are disappointing this time but I like this photograph!

22 Dec 2023
Ephemera
Series of Jesmonite with pigment camera casts

Ephemera An ongoing exploration of materials and the casting process. The camera form represents the mechanical or digital reproduction of an image that can also be reproduced almost indefinitely. Each one of these casts will be unique due to the pigmentation, the materials or hand made imperfections. It questions the multiple aspect of a manufactured object as well as the reproduction of art through print editions or mechanical copies.

29 Nov 2023
Wendong Ren
INK UCA Foyer, 23-28 Nov 2023

Professor Ren was invited to exhibit recent work that combines and fuses Chinese techniques of ink drawing with modern (Western) artistic narrative. Really like this work, the graphic presentation, the deep blues and expressive brushmarks. All so very emotive and delicate, yet on a large scale. The cropped images, the way they are cut off and positioned on the tall banner shaped paper is balanced and elegant. It is a perfect excercise in control and release, harmony and emotion and years of observation.

28 Nov 2023
Mark Making
Expressive Drawing Lesson UCA Year Zero BA0 Fine art students

Invited by the Year Zero tutor to provide some drawing lessons for their students to explore and improve skills. This session we looked at work by Brice Marden and others, expressive non-representational drawing. Combining with artist quotes and then drawing with charcoal and chalk to express the quote.

27 Nov 2023
Off The Wall
UCA Exhibition Grace film projected onto three primed canvases (60x140cm) positioned next to each other with a thin gap. Presented with an art book.

This short film was taken in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern art gallery in London. The composition identifies three glass window panels as a triptych framing device and includes three groups of ghostly shaped figures behind sitting on three benches. The figures are diffused and anonymous but there is a suggestion of a connection between them determined by their close proximity and relaxed posture. They are unaware of the recording which is unrehearsed.

Rewards can be revealed through the balanced composition, the delicacy and softness of the forms, the muted tones and their independent movements. They appear slowed in motion while resting, adjusting their seating gently, lost in their own worlds. They move with a harmonious disposition to their surroundings, while the live audio recording amplifies echoes, music and screeches creating an impersonal cavernous space on our side.

As the nondescript figures depart from the seats, their visual marks on the glass slowly fade away and disappear, the sounds continue obliviously in their absence.

The three canvases are primed but unpainted, bearing no recognisable images. They mimic the triptych in the film and the anonymity of the figures. The location is a gallery with paintings hanging on the walls or films to watch and people walk around and stare at them, often quite briefly. These canvases are a connection between the people resting and the paintings viewed in the gallery. Art films with nonlinear narrative are shown in galleries and the viewers watch only fragments and then decide when to depart.

This is a completely non choreographed two minute observation with luck and foresight to produce a snapshot of life.

25 Nov 2023
0530 . Core
Series of eleven acrylic drawings on coated paper

0530

The paper's coated gloss surface encourages the paint to form thin lines producing a delicate intricate texture that makes the images appear both transparent and solid. In connection to viewing the work of Jirō Yoshihara (吉原 治良), Zen, Enso circle and hard edge painting. Different techniques and influences to achieve that spontaneous gestural mark that captures all the time practising and learning.

22 Nov 2023
MA Gallery trip to London
Camden Art Centre, Tate Modern, Josh Lilley Gallery and Pi Artworks

MA Gallery Trip to London: Above is Joan Mitchel (1925-1992) and the new hanging in the Tate Modern occupying the old Rothko room. Large spectacular landscape pictures with loose brush marks of yellow, oranges and greens work their way around this large room, aptly with a new resident with connections to the New York school as the previous inhabitant also did. Mitchel said "I carry my landscapes around with me" By the door is a series of eight illustrated poems in litho prints. From here to a room displaying five 152 cm square exquisite acrylic paintings by Agnes Martin (1912-2004). From the Tate ``Martin's work was influenced by Zen Buddhism and Chinese Tao philosophy. Her paintings explore the inner emotional world and the human desire for peace and serenity. She considered art to be a transcendent experience. She explained, ‘Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not just in the eye. It is in the mind. It is our positive response to life’ ".

The Camden art Centre has two artists on display: Tamara Henderson and Marina Xenofontos. Henderson’s work “Green in the Grooves” was bringing to our attention the fragile earth beneath our feet and the damage that people make and the cyclical processes of nature, especially earthworms. Living in Australia she reflects and captures life in the remote outback and living in tune with her surroundings. Within a greenhouse installation was a brilliant flooring using strips of ole hosepipes, ingenious.

Marina Xenofontos’ work “Public domain” is looking at her native Cyprus and representing how the culture and life are displayed through found or familiar objects. What was also interesting here was that the large room had three items in it and the thin silver walking canes hanging from the ceiling was almost indiscernible from the windows behind.

El Anatsui’s ”Behind the Red Moon” is in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Large red and yellow sales fill the width and height and on closer inspection the fabric is actually woven bottle tops collected from bottles that would travel around the globe similar to the trade vessels of previous centuries.

(Green castle mould) Along to the Josh Lilley Gallery to see Sula Bermúdez-Silverman’s “Bad Luck Rock” exhibition of casts in glass, uranium glass and sugar of everyday objects. Next to the Addis Fine Art for Merikokeb Berhanu’s (Five paintings) exhibition of paintings for “A World Grows Within”. Very colourful with vibrant hues, a new look and with a scraping technique employed reminiscent of running a comb through the paint. Deploying a mixture of styles and texture the works were anything but busy and the compositions were sure in themselves, calm and resolved. Some of the smaller pieces (30x20cm acrylic on paper) were very gestural, fewer colours and appeared like prints in their flat painted execution. These were more satisfying to me as they appeared more accessible and undiluted with their figurative forms and natural movements.

19 Nov 2023
0529 árboles de la vida
Six boxes containing seed pods from Sevilla, España.

trees of life (Six boxes containing seed pods) 1 - 6 (110cm cubes 4mm ply and natural objects) 1,3 & 6 Jacaranda Tree, 2 & 4 Bottle Tree and 5 Trumpet Tree. Jacaranda Mimosifolia, Brachychiton Populneus (Bottle) & Brugmansia (Trumpet). Native to Sevilla, España.

Celebrating the beauty of nature, the elegant curves and soft warm browns of these organic vessels. Isolated in its own space with a neutral background all aspects of the form's colour, shape and texture can be appreciated. Floating in space, light and still capturing their own flow and movement. The thin box is a fragile shell protecting its precious contents from the elements that allow it to perform it primary function. Do they evolve to be beautiful or is that the shapes please us because we know them so well.

17 Nov 2023
0531 . vessels
Drawings. Black acrylic and sponge brush.

vessels Drawings of seed pods from "árboles de la vida" in acrylic with a sponge brush. Approximately A2 on chinese paper. Gestural marks interpreting the forms and shadows capturing the flow of the pods.

4 Nov 2023
Memories of Drawings - Georgia O'Keeffe - The Gallery, Winchester, Hampshire.
Twenty one O'keeffe drawings made between 1915 and 1963, reproduced as photogravure prints.

Georgia O'Keeffe. There are no O'keeffe artworks held in any UK public collection* and this exhibition by the Hayward Touring organisation is a rare chance to see her work outside of the US.

* Slightly edited from text accompanying the exhibition at The Gallery, Winchester.

26 OCT 2023
The Three Graces - Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Neoclassical white marble sculpture by Antonio Canova (1757-1822)

The Three Graces was designed and carved by Antonio Canova's and his workshop between 1814 and 1817 in Rome, Italy. This version is a second commission from the Duke of Bedford, the first commision by Josephine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte and is now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Derived from ancient Greek literature and legends of the god Zeus and depicting his three daughters, from left to right: Euphrosyne who brought mirth to humanity, Aglaea who bestowed elegance and Thalia representing youth and beauty. The carving is meticulous, the figures look light and delicate, their honed skin smooth as if it would be soft to touch. It is remarkable to achieve this effect from a material as hard as marble. The composition and detail of the figures will borrow much from the ancient Greeks and subsequent Roman copies but is also remarkable in itself. They are the embodiment of the wonder of the human spirit, representing the epitome of the best of humanity, the joy, the beauty and life.

Bottom Row 1. The Bather (1915) by Albert Toft (182-1949). Marble on loan from Tate. 2 & 3. Psyche (about 1908-19) Francis Derwent Wood (1871-1926). Bronze on loan from Tate. Psyche is an allegorical figure who represents the soul. Its expressive naturalism is characteristic of the British New Sculpture of the period 1880-1910. 4. Theseus and the Minotaur (1782), marble group, sculpted by Antonio Canova, Rome, Italy.

18 OCT 2023
Interactive board at South Hill Park Arts Centre (0483)
Design and artwork for the interactive board at South Hill Park, Bracknell, to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.

The design incorporates the 'Portholes' piece displayed in the Spring and also audio recordings made around the building by another colleague at UCA. The idea of Look, Listen, Find ways to encourage interaction and a game of finding where the images came from. The 'Portholes' piece was to bring some of the outside in, to bring the views and details of thee house and gardens to the viewers attention. Each of the eight views is a detail, a fragment, of what makes up the Art Centre and its grounds. When in the house, the views are of the outside.

The elements of the design were given shadows to lift them and also made slightly transparent to build up layers. The overall effect was to make it look more three dimensional and with some depth. Minimal use of colour, predominantly black with a lime green accent colour. Two photographs were taken specifically for the piece, one of South Hill Park house from the gardens, and the other looking up at winter beech trees in Ackender wood, Alton, to capture the effect of spinning ... This motion blur provides movement to the design and suggests a circular cyclical motion that reflects the World revoving around South Hill Park as it moves through history and different owners. The shadow behind the 'porthole' images and the hands lifts them from the surface to adds another dimension to the plane. The illusion of a more three dimensional aspect releases the views of the building and landscaped gardens from the surface, projecting out to the future and the future of the place.
https://www.southhillpark.org.uk/shp-events/look-listen-find/

09 OCT 2023
'Wunderkammer' group crit
Box of curiosity

'0510 - Stabilised Decay'
When water leaves an organic object it can temporarily exist in a fragile but reasonably stable state. Dried and semi preserved it becomes a new object, removed from its former more familiar state. Beginning as a dried seed it absorbs water and sunlight and becomes a living organism to perform a year cycle. The captured energy is recorded within the shapes, the layers and wrapping folds become receipts of the transformation of elements into form.

The work explores the relationship of sets of three and the connection between them. This piece has three similar elements that are spaced apart in equal distance and are then contained within a box construction. This containment isolates the objects from the surroundings to allow the texture, colours and shapes to be appreciated and then slowly the three begin to form a single entity. Albeit each has attributes, its size and position that allow them to retain individual facets.

The boxed art approach protects the items inside and controls how they are illuminated. This precious object scenario is at odds with their actual real world value so the wonder becomes that of whether they do possess something revered to receive this special treatment. Without glass in front they are still in this world and can be viewed without obstruction. With a stuffy dusty faint odour the equisite colours of the matter reveal its fragility.

09 OCT 2023
Five Rolled drawings (0511)
Drawing - Ink, roller, rescued A1 paper.

Series of five prints with similar and simple motifs that are continuous 'rolls' while moving around the paper. The designs are loosely figurative and depict single non representational extruded forms.

27 SEP 2023
Six Squeegee prints
A series of dragged squeegee prints from top to bottom diluted black printing ink

dk.0513.10.jpg

1 - 6 Monoprints. Drawings using print processes: the squeegee, viscous printing inks or acrylic paint, dragged along the paper and recording the journey of the ink, the spread and when it depleted.

28 AUG 2023
Mark making with printing ink
Exploring ways of using printing techniques, materials and equipment.

Using printing inks to explore mark making, strong and soft black oil based and also waterbase black inks. Marking off areas of paper and using a squeegee to spread the ink across the surface. This was re-squeegeed a few times with the same ink to achieve the desired anmount of coverage. Some finished prints were more successful than others and I noticed that when there was a very thin coating of ink on the squeegee it scraped across the surface leaving a textured finish. Although this does appeal to my love of textures I actually found it a more satisfying result when the spread of ink had clean spaces around it making it more defined. This definition appears more controlled and its shape, although partly created through manipulating the squeegee only, was more deliberate in its execution. To achieve this led to the experimentation with different ways of applying the ink and how it moves across the surface of different papers.

28 AUG 2023
UCA MA Post Grad Show
Year 2022-2023 - 26 August to 02 September 2023

MA Fine Art Grad Show at UCA, 2023. Wide variety of strong work this year, with a range of disciplines from Sculpture, painting, installation and video. Curated by Andrea Gregson in the studios space R03 each student has a similar sized space to express their latest pieces.

MA Grads of 2023 are: Camila Aguais, Oluwafemi Babalola, Wai Yi Chung, Weiqing Deng, Peggy Shih, Chea Smart, Renming Tan, Xiaonan Wang, Liting Zheng, Zack Zhu, Davy Chan and Paige Archer. Not all 2023 MA students' work is shown here at the moment, apologies.

20 JUL 2023
Curation Project (UCA - Vacated BA Fine Art studio spaces over the summer)
Drawings - DK MA Work 2022-2023

The temporarily vacated studio spaces below the MA mezzanine provides an ideal opportunity to explore some curation of our work, be it previous pieces or new. I thought I would make a new piece for a space that would suit a 2.2m x 1.5m drawing on Fabriano paper wusing powdered and compressed charcoal (dk.0505). The direction for the image was based on a film made last year at the Tate Modern, a comment on how we interact with each other. I have used this image to explore ancient Greece mythology and the daughters of Zeus who each bestow a particular gift on humanity. To provide context I may add three words in faint type using a Roman typeface (Trajan), this may work or it may make the piece seem more graphic. Type is used by many artists (Fiona Banner, Barbara Kruger for example)

First room has a charcoal drawing (dk.0490) on scrunched colorama paper with torn edges. The creases create forms in the drawing, a connection between a geolocial surface, like a cave and figurative images.

Second room has three strips from the Interspace project positioned in successive layers similar to seeing rock strata horizontally, each revealing another part of its story. Then the ‘Core’ drawing (dk.0500 - Oil on canvas) representing a vertical slice of strata with its three sections depicting figurative forms. The other wall holds an older piece (dk.0462 - Oil on Paper )

20 JUL 2023
Mueseo De Bellas Artes De Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain
Drawings - Sketchbook

Mueseo De Bellas Artes De Sevilla - The building was possibly a palace with large rooms decorated in delicate ornate detailing and many enclosed square gardens areas within the complex to shade from the sun and cool down amongst the shrubs and water features.
The art works span from just pre Renaissance with El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán, Murillo to the nineteenth century. Cristo crucificado - Francisco de Zurbarán.

Sketches around the pool in 4B pencil, Pigma Micron and Acrylic paint. Looking and drawing to semi abstract the view through lack of detail and speed rather than a decision of simplifying the marks. Main themes are sunbathers, brollies and palm trees.

28 JUN 2023
Chris Ofili - 'Seven Deadly Sins' . Victoria Miro Gallery, 16 Wharf Rd, London N1 7RW
Anselm Kiefer - 'Finnegans Wake' - White Cube, Bermondsey, 144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ - 7 June – 20 August 2023
Victor Pasmore - Eames Fine Art Gallery, 58 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UD. 22 June - 30 July 2023

Top 1 Chris Ofili 2 Anselm Kiefer 3 Victor Pasmore

Chris Ofili - An impressive display of large, highly decorative and wildly colourful paintings, their scale providing necessary impact for the superb Victoria Miro Gallery’s space. Patterns of dots with some representational elements showing figures and recognisable forms. The dots are reminiscent of aboriginal art with its flat and precise construction and intriguing storytelling narratives, deadly sins in this case .

Anselm Kiefer - A truly remarkable White Cube show to make the most of the gallery’s set up and immense spaces. There is little chance that Kiefer’s work will get lost here. Emerging beyond the entrance of hanging rags and plastic curtains there is a low lit corridor completely saturated with found objects laid out onto metal racks three layers high. Extending into the distance along both walls in this long, dark and narrow space. Almost too much to take in, it takes time to become accustomed to the sheer volume of items here.
Based on Joyce’s novel, Finnegans Wake, the murky paint coated objects are accompanied with witty lines from the novel and insights to the world of Joyce. The corridor spills into the larger rooms with installations of sand, shopping trolleys and concrete rubble. Huge painting/sculptures on the walls and it begins to feel like everything is part of the artwork, including the viewers. The raised building, fractured and twisted by an earthquake or explosive power, the pieces lay upon each other like a stack of playing cards. The jagged concrete edges and twisted reinforced steel bars are given a new purpose, the gallery space sets off these tragic fabrications removing the reality of their downfall and inviting new narrative.
This is definitely an experience to give some time to, to then reflect and maybe revisit. The White Cube is free and I can’t think of a more generous gift.

Nearby, having looked in at the Peter Layton - Glass Blowing Gallery (66 Bermondsey Street) the equally inviting Eames Fine Art Gallery (58 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UD) was a lucky find. This time, catching our eye were a collection of exquisite minimal forms etched and screen printed in pure colour tones by Victor Pasmore. Pasmore was an English artist, born in 1908 and on a personal journey through a wide range of painting styles but finally resting on abstraction and print. The gallery has an impressive selection of hsi later prints, their sophisticated design and thoughtful compositions, aligning with minimalism yet curiously detailed. All the prints were visually engaging, deploying some nice original touches, notably the odd black line or shape element, off the plate and drawing outside of the original print boundary. Breaking the fourth wall, reaching out towards us, dividing the sensuously smooth and immaculate colour with a sharp and decisive accent and acknowledging the viewer.
A life inspired by Miro and peers of Hepworth and Nickolson, the prints hint at influences yet are fresh and clearly original. You’d be very lucky to own one!
Thank you to the helpful and engaging Luke Wallis from the gallery, for his time and thoughtful discussion about Pasmore’s work.

28 JUN 2023
London Show . 'Resident' Studio 1.1, 57a Redchurch Street, Shorditch, London E2 7DJ 27.06.23 - 03.07.23 . dk

img dk . 0500 (200 x 15.5cm), Studio 1.1

Core A sliver of three fragmented figure drawings. Canvas shape is reminiscent of a drilled core of earth that reveals the strata, the layers, the hidden fabric of the substrate.

The drawing would require some scale for a level of impact yet at the same time it must fit into a relatively small space. The ceiling height determined the height of the canvas and the width was the thinnest possible to make use of angle clamps in its construction, coincidentally 15.5 cms. The canvas was primed with acrylic gesso and then divided equally into three areas, vertically. Each would display a figurative drawing, drawn from memory in Ivory black oil paint only. The white gesso would contrast the black and it became an important part of the effect, so more was left untouched than originally planned. The negative space, the absence, like a spine, it is the core of the figure, displaying the layers that make the form.

28 JUN 2023
Fiona Banner sculptures . South Bank , London

img Full Stop Courier (Font) . dk

Fiona Banner - Two sculptures on London's South Bank near Tower Bridge from her work with typefaces and punctuation. The Full Stop Courier is actually two sculptures and the other (not shown) is Full Stop Slipstream (Font) that is more italicised and stands upright over head height at a jaunty angle.

15 JUN 2023 . Intaglio Sugar lift prints

img Figure plate 007

Plate 007 Sugar lift intaglio print from a steel plate. Hand ink in black and prussian blue. Plate has an open bite dark areas and a thin painted coat of hard ground that also lets some bite through. Printed onto "" 250gsm paper. (Font).

05 MAY 2023 . Carbon Drawings on colorama paper . dk

Figs dk . 0485 (150 x 80 cm) and 0490 (120 x 80 cm)

Carbon powder drawings on Colorama paper Exploring large carbon powder and compressed charcoal drawing onto scraps of photography backdrop paper. The additional creasing and scrunching of the paper breaks down the surface to be firstly less daunting to make a start and secondly the creases can inform the drawing and marks emerge and the decisions are based on real time as the drawing unfolds. Working from memory what happens on the paper is directed by small more successful lines and shapes. The memories are of landscapes, nature, feeling and emotions of places and also the figure, a form in the landscape. Drawing this way an exciting and rewarding process and the defects created in the paper add a new level of automation to the mark making.

On display (dk 0485) in the life drawing exhibition, Library space, UCA Farnham (June - September 2023).

10 APR 2023 . London . Gilbert and George Centre, Whitchapel Gallery

The Gilbert and George Centre a new gallery at 5a Heneage St. London E1 5LJ. A green wrought iron gate in a newly fresh clean wall along from a well attended pub now opens onto a courtyard leading to a hidden doorway. This is an exciting entrance to a cleverly adapted small and now crowded part of London. Gilbert and George, true to their journey of living in the district of E1, have worked wonders with the space available and afforded a three room gallery held over three floors.

The experience with G&G's current work from 2019 is chapel-like with their signature stained glass provoking work depicting topics from this era. Magnificent and spiritual in size and layout the whole space is a delight to experience, the setting is also perfect for their current work.

I happened to see both Gilbert and George in the shop after and I congratulated them on their work and the new gallery, of which they said ‘thank you’ very politely.

Next was the Whitechapel Gallery and an extensive exhibition presenting Abstract Expressionist artists: 'Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70'. The art work here by Nadia Sakali called ‘Geste’ (Gesture) was interesting and apt to the title in its simplicity. The use of just a few black blobs and strokes pulled me in and immediately started to provide questions. The composition appealed with the clear use of negative space and the largish size (approx 1m square). The contrast of slightly blurry and solid elements were similar to pressing up against frosted glass where the pressure points become the focus. The depth of field becomes apparent and the mystery of something out of focus. It is what it is, but it definitely told me something.

An inspiring collection of art from the 1950 from the women of Ninth Street and beyond painting alongside their male contemporaries all struggling to harness abstraction and expression in a new art form that would see NY become the art centre of the world. A host of incredible artists creating monumental images of raw mark making battling with themselves and the systems. Some being romantic companions to the curiously famous household names we know so well but here is an extended list of the key players in American Abstract Expressionism and the New York Schools: joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner (Jackson Pollock), Grace Hartigan, Elaine DeKooning (Willem De Kooning), Janet Sobel and Helen Frankenthaler (Robert Motherwell)

18 MAR 2023 . RESIDUAL . MA Exhibition . South Hill Park Art Centre . Bracknell [dk]

Residual Responding to the house and gardens. The proposed work is to span one of the corridors that lead to the print room and dance studio. As there is little natural light or windows in this area the intended work is to create windows to view aspects of the house and gardens. In order to bring the outside inside, drawings will represent windows that punctuate these blank walls, depicting selected views from the real windows within the house. The drawings will be circular in shape, mimicking the style of a ship’s portholes reminiscent of an era when the world was opening up and being explored.

https://www.southhillpark.org.uk/ copy link into browser

20 FEB 2023 . SYSTEMATIC . MA crit . UCA [dk]

Systematic Something that is systematic is methodical in its classification. Usually this can be a taxonomy of living organisms that are ordered and documented for future study. This research will further our knowledge and increase our understanding of the subject to benefit future generations.

These (three, six or seven, A3) images could appear to be visual recordings of translucent marine organisms, carefully observed under a microscope or similar scientific mechanism. Presented here, ready for classification.

This taxonomy of ‘things’ is actually questionable as they are not organic or alive. They are inanimate transparent plastic objects, devoid of any feeling or life. Suspended in space they float and wait, unsure of their true purpose.

We know there are real transparent lifeforms living in our oceans. Environments that are now polluted by our pioneering hydrocarbon science. Cleverly manipulated chemistry that creates beautiful objects, organic sculptural forms that mimic life but are quite dead.


SYSTEMATIC art book link at the bottom of this page.

29 JAN 2023 . NewArtCentre . Roche Court Sculpture Park

NewArtsCentre . Roche Court, East Winterslow, Salisbury. @newartcentre

New sculpture park in Wiltshire, near Salisbury, presenting a beautiful house and grounds and splendid art pieces. Many sculptures displayed in a glorious natural landscape setting with additional modern exhibition space attached to the house displaying the works of Barbara Hepworth (Sculptures and drawings), Edmund de Waal (Ceramics) and the mixed media work of Matt Rugg (Great name!). Larger sculptures outside by Anthony Gormley, Anthony Caro, Richard Long, Nigel Hall, Bill Woodrow and the dramatic Beverly Pepper's 'Medea' in Corten Steel, plus many other great pieces.

Sculpture parks are wonderful places, they create an anticipation to explore and interact with the outside space and if it is beautiful countryside then this is even better. Finding works positioned around a space can draw one into these corners that would otherwise not be visited. The secrecy and play of this process makes it worthwhile in itself, but then the work is able to speak and communicate and that is combined with the viewer's interpretation of the forms in relation to the setting.

Beverly Pepper's 'Medea' in Corten Steel is particularly interesting. The scale is large and has obvious great mass, but the form is graceful and elegant belying its weight and providing a level of effortlessness to humanise it. Loosely reminiscent of Richard Serra’s work, the initial response is informed by his work. Although with Pepper’s, the work has more construction and contaminants. The forms are hollow and contained so there is a more deliberate feeling derived from their shapes. The drama and the natural rusting of the surface allows this piece to curiously blend into its surroundings and at the same time demands to be noticed. All of the works are for sale.

Contact NewArtCentre for enquiries.

01 JAN 2023 . Inspired by... . NY [dk]

NY slot dk . 0470 (1.5m x 0.8m - Oil and graphite powder on paper)

New York Slot (2023) . This drawing is from seeing Alex Gatz window paintings in the Guggenheim (New York). The blackness appeals, along with the large scale of the painting. There is a photographic composition quality to the image that also resonates with the weirdness and style in a graphic manner. Impactful in its simplicity and deeply evocative of feelings that compliment Edward Hopper’s observations of the city. The emptiness and loneliness of the city at night, the voyeuristic nature of seeing other people but not connecting with them. The power of these emotions expands the images beyond their first impression. This drawing shows different facets of darkness with burnished metallic panels and unpainted strips of light. It is a simplification and abstraction of a lit window scene, attempting to isolate and capture similar feelings without the representative narrative. Do images need a recognisable image narrative to evoke emotions? The painting confirms a panoramic photographic process with its narrow but wide field of view creating a controlled view of the scene, limiting but enhancing the view in question.