Sara Parsons
A new mixed-media exhibition is opening in the Lansdown Gallery on 14th June until 19th June 2023. This exhibition showcases the work of 8 South West-based artists; each has exhibited in public, solo exhibitions, group shows and festivals throughout the UK.
Responding to the theme Contemplation & Transformation, each artist’s practice is informed by their life experiences of their surroundings and the natural world resulting in diverse and distinctive work. All the artists spend time contemplating what they observe before transforming their materials into pieces that give the observer a chance to pause and reflect.
Responding to the common theme and each artist working independently, the result is an exciting exhibition of 2 and 3 dimensional pieces in mixed-media, paint, print, jewellery, contemporary textile art, weave, ceramics and photography.
The Lansdown Gallery is open from 10.30am to 4.30pm daily. Visitors will have an opportunity to interact directly with the artists, as they will be stewarding the exhibition daily.
Carla Mines from Brunel Broderers
Artists include:
Liz Brooke Ward - a Stroud based contemporary textile artist whose work is informed by her observations of the natural world & the landscape, and her reading of poetry and prose. Her work for this exhibition is inspired by the work of a 17th Century artist, naturalist & explorer Maria Sibylla Merian and her study of the metamorphosis of insects.
Instagram @mylittledoglovesme
Dominic Hewitt – a photographer who is fascinated by nature and the remains of industry that he finds abandoned in the landscape. In his photographs he enhances the colours he sees to reveal their underlying beauty, their texture and form offering an alternative view to the casual observer.
Instagram @needlevision_photography
Liz Hewitt - a well-established mixed-media artist, whose work revolves around nature & healing, and her thoughts about how spending time in the natural world and being creative help maintain our equilibrium. She tries to use sustainable, environmentally friendly techniques and materials; making her own dyes, inks and paints to use on natural fabrics and paper. The work for this exhibition builds on this practice using paints made with naturally occurring pigments and homemade organic soya milk on linen.
Instagram @stitchliz
Deborah Pawle has enjoyed working with textiles for many years, mainly through the medium of weaving and hand stitch. She experiments with natural dyeing using threads, yarn and fabric dyed with plant material.
Hand stitch and weaving are slow and thoughtful ways of working, a time of contemplation, and relaxing - a type of meditation with the rhythm of the needle threading through cloth or the regularity of yarn threading in and out during the weaving process mimicking the breath. It is a time of transformation, of thread, yarn and fabric becoming something other than the individual components, of becoming a whole with different meaning.
The woven pieces are her way of working through incomplete and complex thoughts on what is happening to our planet, some happy some not.
Carla Mines uses her work, to try and change opinions around the manufacture, use and disposal of plastic, in particular the way 38500+ tons which are deposited into the sea, and the harm it causes.
It will illustrate some of the species threatened with extinction.
Carla’s work is made up of fragments of silk as Proust said, ‘a fragment is a morsel of time in its pure state; it hovers between a present that is immediate and a past that once had been present.’
Sara Parsons - A multimedia artist who uses whichever materials and processes are appropriate to her current investigation and continuing explorations. Although form is of primary importance within her work she embraces the use of texture, colour and often text. Her work for this exhibition focusses on ceramics.
Instagram @saraparsons666
Kay Swancutt - As a maker her work is process focussed. Her interests are in the material’s qualities or personalities and how they describe the idea she is working with; the relationship between hand, head and heart is important. Kay hand weaves, spins and dyes her materials with plants usually grown in her own garden or foraged from the area local to her. Her materials are mostly wool, linen, paper or silk, sometimes being reused. For this exhibition the abstract pieces will be woven from a drawing she did recently whilst at the beach.
Instagram @kayswancutt
Jo Herbert has been designing & making Jewellery for more than 50 years.
Jo has always been inspired by nature particularly the lacy patterns of decaying leaves & seedpods.
Recently she has been exploring the use of other materials and for this exhibition has used porcelain clay, silver, lamp worked glass and felt for her jewellery inspired by sea creatures.
