As part of The Watershed Project- artists inspired by landscape- for which I was commissioned as the first year artist, I worked with the Young Ambassadors-a group of young adults. We explored the wild and very windswept landscape of the moors around The Bridestones, looked at some examples of my work and then made model … Read more
“Inspired by Landscape” Bradford 1 Gallery , Centenary Square, Bradford Saturday 22nd June – Saturday 24th August Sally Barker, Andrew McMillan, Char March, Angie Rogers, Anna Turner, Simon Warner
initially made for installation at Contemporary Sedimentary, my solo show at South Square Gallery, Thornton in 2014. Recently the piece has been part of the Seaswim, Head Above Water, an ACE touring exhibition at Peninsula Arts , Plymouth ; Strange Cargo , Folkestone and Crescent Art Gallery, Scarborough.
Solo show at South Square Gallery, Thornton
Friday 7th June – Sunday 28th July
Whilst foldgallery was closed throughout the freezing months of January to March 2008, several artists were invited to make work for the window. For this I built “Bespoke Mountain”, continuing ideas about the landscape and belonging that had permeated recent pieces. Using materials foraged from around the town: rubble, concrete, stone, supplemented with stuff from the builders merchants I created a mountain on top of a table, a sculpture growing out of its environment. The idea that I build with the materials from a location is integral, not simply to locate the sculpture to its venue, but also to locate myself.
I remade “Bespoke Mountain” for SCOPE art fair – continuing the focus of this piece discussing belonging and place through the materials, I built this “Bespoke Mountain 2” with the stone from the farm walls where I grew up. This added another layer, as I was in a sense building with the stuff of my childhood, making something in the present and for the future, using materials from the past.
I have just shown a Bespoke Mountain in Carlisle, part of the cultural event organised by the artists collective, freerange artists, to support the city’s bid for Capital of Culture. On the corner of Castle St. & Finkle St, opposite the castle, is a thinly bedded out planter. A tractor hood rests on the soil and getting closer, looking through the windows, a landscape of glass, wood, stone and slate and tiny people reveals itself.
I was the first year artist on the three year project called “The Watershed- Inspired by Landscape” – a Heritage Lottery funded commission to make a new body of work in response to the moorland landscape of the south pennines and to develop a new visiting audience (WLP is currently a finalist in the National Lottery Awards for best environmental project).
For This is not an Empty Space, we (myself with a group of local artists) took over one floor of an abandoned mill in Hebden Bridge. Through the combination of incongruous, dry fountains and “suitable”, living saplings, this piece continues to expolore themes of belonging, identity and sustainability.
