By, with, from, and in landscape

Lotte Glob: Books of the Land - Solidified Thoughts ceramic, 2004, 45 x 42cm

Yesterday we had to go to Winchester for boring administrative reasons, and I looked to see if there was anything else which might make the journey more worthwhile.  I found an exhibition of sculpture on at the gallery of the Winchester Discovery Centre (what libraries are called these days) - it sounded interesting.  I had been meaning to go for some time in order to see the Alice Kettle commission, so, several birds for one stone!
The Figure in the Landscape exhibition is brilliant: small, but perfectly formed.  It has that balance which one wants in all exhibitions: familiar stuff one loves, new (to the viewer) and astonishing/inspirational work, and work which makes one think.

Henry Moore: Reclining Figure: Hand bronze, 1979, 221cm length, Hamburg

The familiar was represented by an 86.3cm bronze working model for the above sculpture, work by Peter Randall-Page, both carved stone and ceramic on the wall, and a piece by Barbara Hepworth who inspired this exhibition.  Rachel Bebb of The Garden Gallery curated this show, and wrote the accompanying catalogue (£2 from the Discovery Centre).  In her introduction she says that 'Barbara Hepworth came to view landscape as a document of layers of human existence, and the menhirs and megaliths of Cornwall, where she lived and worked as a metaphor for individuals in society, communicating silently between past and present cultures.

... Barbara Hepworth wrote ... "To me a basic purpose of sculpture is to express the importance of man and his fundamental unity with nature."'

Barbara Hepworth: Two figures (Menhirs), Cornish slate, 1964, 82.5 x 63.8 x 32cm, Tate Gallery

Moores and Hepworths are much loved by both myself and my husband, and we never tire of seeing examples of their work.  Just these two pieces alone would have been worth the journey.  But added to them we were entranced by the works of two artists new to us: Keith Rand and Emily Young. 

Emily Young's Maremma Warrior II creates the stunning image on the cover of the catalogue.  Partly out of its block of quartzite the head seems timeless, frozen from an earlier age, an ancient warrior or leader still powerful even in sleep: a man of myth. There is a great strength in the stone captured and also released by the carving of the features.  On the other hand the work in carved wood by Keith Rand reminded me of folded paper: the delicacy and yet strength too that that has.

 

Keith Rand: Parsonage Down I bleached limewood, 2005, 108 x 19.5 x19cm and

Parsonage Down II, bleached limewood, rust, boxwood, 2005, 86 x 22 x 16cms 

I have read articles previously about Lotte Glob, and her house, and sometimes longed to be living far away from it all in the empty harsh beauty which is Sutherland in Scotland.  Although I have seen images of her ceramics I had until yesterday never seen any for real.  Well, her Books of the Land: Solidified Thoughts, seen at the top of this post is magnificent.  It is as if the knowledge of the ancients has become the land itself.

On the thought-provoking side, one artist new to me has me thinking again about the importance of distilling all the disparate input into an economical elegance, which like consommé is clarity itself while filled with a depth of taste and traces of all the ingredients.  Tim Harrisson has two sculptures in the exhibition, one carved out of Carrara marble given to him by the Barbara Hepworth Estate; but it is his three Drawings for a Geological Room which intrigued me more.

Tim Harrisson: Drawings for a Geological Room, Black, charcoal on paper, 2010, 100 x 72cm

White, ink and chalk on paper

Grey, ink and charcoal on paper

I really like these meditative scribbles which remind me of stone floors which contain fossils etc.  In going to his website later I found prints which also intrigue me, and have started me thinking about possibilities for my own printmaking.

There were other works in the exhibition, by other artists, intriguing also, but these which I've mentioned attracted me most.  My mind was so occupied by my thoughts about the work in the Figure in the Landscape exhibition that I could not at all concentrate on another reasonably substantial exhibition of textile work in another gallery in the Discovery Centre.  We buzzed round that, and I'm pleased to say that people were buying quite a lot - there were red dots everywhere and the turnover of stock was quite high for some makers.  This show is by the Force 8 group of textile artists.