Exhibition preparations

Sally and I met on Friday to review our work and discuss exhibition preparations.  We spread our work out on the floor and had a critique session.  I can't share pictures - we were too involved to take many anyway - but I am excited to see all our work coming together.  And it was revealing to see both the differences and the similarities in our response to the same source material.  

We both still have much to do and our deadlines our almost upon us now.  There is a mass of administrative preparation to do alongside finishing our work.  One of those is publicity, so above is our flyer with details of the exhibition. There will be two elements to this.  The first is a gallery exhibition at Babylon Gallery in Ely, Cambridgeshire.  The second is an art trail at Wicken Fen itself - Sally and I are thrilled that the reserve managers are willing to let us create some installations in some of the hides at the Fen.  The hides have turned out to be an important source of inspiration for us - more on that another time.  

In the meantime, a few glimpses of what's been going on in my studio.  

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I can never resist arranging the edges as I pile up the finished work ... 

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New work

Although I have not been writing about it here, between visits to Wicken Fen I have been working away on a new group of work.  It is a continuation of last year’s “Between the Lines” series in that it repeats the imagery and themes, but is sufficiently different that I have given it its own title, “A Marginal Space”. 

There were several aspects of “Between the Lines” that I wanted to develop further so, over several days in January and early February, I filled a sketchbook with collage experiments.  Working with paper and on a small scale meant that I could work fast and try out lots of different ideas without getting too precious or hung up on any one of them.  And to help me think differently, I set a series of “rules” in opposition to my previous approach.  I found it was relatively straightforward to translate what I learned from this exercise into cloth. 

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I’ve made fourteen pieces of work in this group and spent several days recently photographing them.  I love these detail images.  They really focus attention on the marks. 

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Several pieces from this group will be exhibited at Gallery 57 in Arundel for the exhibition, Gaze, Glimpse: A look at landscape (24 June – 6 August).  This is a lovely gallery, run by Ann Symes, and I am thrilled to be exhibiting there alongside a wonderful group of other artists.  In fact you can see a preview of the new pieces here. 

In the meantime, I also have some work in Bircham Gallery’s current Early Summer Exhibition, which is on until 24 May. 

Exhibition and other news

I raced back from North Norfolk yesterday to set up the exhibition with Clive Barnett at Art Van Go in Knebworth, Hertfordshire.  I am delighted to be showing some new work alongside Clive, who shares my interest in mark-making.  

The exhibition runs from 2 to 19 September.  

Secondly, I was honoured when Maggie Grey asked me to write an article for Workshop on the Web about my daily mark-making practice.  This has now been published in September's edition (subscription needed).  

Exhibitions and other news

I am delighted to be showing some new work in Bircham Gallery's Early Summer Exhibition.   This is a mixed show which also features paintings by Anne Davies, Keith Roper, Tony Foster, Mhairi McGregor, Martin Laurance, Stephanie Stow and Sally Tyrie; and ceramics by Virginia Graham and Lowri Davies.  

The exhibition runs from 23 May to 17 June.  There is an online catalogue with details of all the artists and their work.  You can see my page here.  

I am also preparing for an exhibition from 2-19 September at Art Van Go in Knebworth, Hertfordshire.  This will be a joint exhibition with Clive Barnett.  Further details to follow.  

Finally, I am very honoured that John Hopper of The Textile Blog chose to write about my work in Issue 4 of Inspirational magazine.