The Ropewalk gallery in Barton on Humber is hosting a new Hayward Touring exhibition of screen-prints by Eduardo Paolozzi as part of a national tour.
General Dynamic F.U.N. which opens on Saturday, September 10, is a series of 50 screen-prints and photolithographs which were created between 1965 and 1970.
Here Paolozzi employs the technologies of mass-reproduction and gorges on its idols – the household names and familiar faces of consumer advertising, high fashion and Hollywood.
The artist’s friend and sometime collaborator, J.G. Ballard, described General Dynamic F.U.N as a ‘unique guidebook to the electric garden of our minds’.
The Ropewalk’s Exhibition’s Officer, Richard Hatfield, said Paolozzi, who died in 2005, was equally revered for his mechanistic sculptures and his kaleidoscope print projects.
“It’s not surprising that he described himself as ‘a wizard in Toytown’ as he transformed the mundane, the derelict and the mass produced into images that zap with electric eclecticism and impress with their graphic complexity,” he went on.
The prints bear idiosyncratic titles such as Totems and Taboos of the Nine-to-Five Day, Twenty Traumatic Twinges and Cary Grant as a Male War Bride.
“For Paolozzi, the modern age, exposed as ephemera, is a necessarily fragmented collision of visual stimulus and influence, and his work is a ‘health warning for an uncreative and thriftless society’”, Richard went on.
This Hayward Touring exhibition from Southbank Centre, London, is on behalf of Arts Council England.
The exhibition is open daily until Sunday October 9 and admission is free. The Ropewalk is open from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm and on Sundays and Bank Holidays from 10am to 4pm.
The Ropewalk’s annual Gardening Day returns on Sunday, May 23, after a break last summer because of Covid restrictions.
“This year we have had to be mindful of all government restrictions in place at the time of the Gardening Day but at the same time we want to make the experience as near as possible to previous Gardening Days for our visitors,” said Liz Bennet of The Ropewalk. (more…)
Sidelong: A series of photographic studies of the people and landscapes seen ‘in passing’ on the train journey from Barton and while exploring the popular Wakes Week destination town of Cleethorpes.
this is the world seen from the edge of our vision, the sidelong glance, a world absorbed almost sub-consciously in passing, capturing aspects of urban and rural landscapes as the viewer moves through them
“As a photographer I have tried many times to capture this experience but all too often I capture only the place, not the journey, not the travelling. The processive images I am working on now are the closest I have come yet. The motion of the camera facing sideways produces repetitive, fragmented and distorted pictures that convey a dynamic sense of movement: a series of moments compressed and dragged into a single still image: the vague and fragmented memory of a journey, repetitive yet barely observed. A smear of sensation.
Experiencing the journey from Barton and the discovery of Cleethorpes as a destination has allowed me to develop the processive technique and the photographic ‘sidelong glance’ in a relevant direction, following the Wakes Week holidaymakers. Sadly the pandemic has prevented me from completely fulfilling the idea but this exhibition has provided the chance to show my early images taken during winter 2019 /2020.”
Brian Larkman
Shapes and colour, and translating these onto the paper, are the foundation of printmaking. In this show, linocuts by three regional artists illustrate the multitude of colours and shapes in the landscape, juxtaposing their different approaches to using this medium.
Alan Abbey’s connection to the landscape is deep and long-standing, often going back to places he visited as a child. This amalgamation of the real and remembered can be quite an overwhelming experience linking to what Alan calls the ‘spirit of the land’; A wide-ranging mix of emotions can be revealed – from longing and loss to joy and fulfilment.
“As you move through the landscape you become part of it even if only for a short time, so trying to capture even a part of its essence can bring you back to the places you love.”
Nancy Power originally trained in Fashion and Knitwear Design and her passage into printmaking combined her enjoyment of design and technical precision with her for love for nature and landscape.
“My practice is creating reduction linocut prints. I’m excited by the ‘absolute’ decision-making that this process requires. Many of my images are printed from dark to light, as I am intrigued as to how the colours perform quite differently and give some unexpected and surprising results”.
The natural landscape surrounding her Sheffield home near to the Peak District often features in Katherine Rhodes’ painterly linocut prints. Inspired by human endeavour, adventure and being in the outdoors, Katherine’s images hold stories of the relationships, activities, and interactions we have with the outdoor landscape. She has regular contact with climbers and has learnt through them of the intense relationship and the knowledge they acquire when they climb or explore the landscape. To this end “The shapes of the rocks and landscape in prints are shown accurately – features that are crucial to the climber, mountaineer, and walker connecting them intimately with the land, using them to navigate their way up a rockface or through rugged terrain.”
Christmas Spectacular with Alison Read
Brought up on a farm, Alison studied art at Newcastle University before running the Printmaking Workshop at Lincoln University for nine years, where she also completed her MA Degree before becoming a full-time artist
“Although I love all forms of printmaking, my current favourite is the woodcut, and I attack my plates quite brutally at times,” says Alison. “I am always surprised at how simple they are; just a few lines to denote the essentials. I like the hands-on nature of producing a plate and its immediacy. I don’t keep highly detailed sketchbooks etc as I use the plate rather than paper to work out ideas. I think this is why my images are quirky, if I plan too much I find this is often lost”
Penny divides her time between teaching and creating her own work from her studio in St Peter’s School, York. Using a mixture of different clay to capture the form, Penny allows the material itself to express as much as possible of the intrinsic nature of an animal. This is done in as loose a way as possible, so the clay is not overworked. She then uses layers of slips and oxides to add more depth to textural the surface. Penny’s work has traditionally dealt with English animals, both domestic and wild. Over the last two years she has begun a series of larger works concentrating on primates. Created on a bigger scale the “portraits” explore the individual spirit of her subjects. All Penny’s pieces are sculpted with thoughtfulness and understanding, inviting her audience to contemplate and reflect on the intrinsic beauty and energy of wild things
Echoes in the Water: Traces in the Land
New artwork by Mary Sleigh and Jan Miller resonates with the local area, the landscape, history, and industry. While exploring, they have come upon traces of past activity, uncovered the unknown and unexpected, gathered natural and man-made materials and responded to the elements at different times of the year.
Mary Sleigh’s connection to the land comes from her fascination in foraging, gathering, and sorting, often giving her starting points for new work. Finding connections with places and people as a theme, continues in her exploration of the area around Barton on Humber.
Mary’s new work for Echoes in the Water: Traces in the Land celebrates the lives of those who worked in Barton, often many generations of the same family, who had family ties with local industries.
Jan Miller collected shards of tiles bricks, sticks and stones, wood slivers, which along with her notes, photographs form the basis of her work. The single most striking image of the Humber Estuary for Jan is the glorious chocolate-brown silky mud exposed by tidal ebb and flow. Mud, silt, puddle-water, clay, earth, rock pigments have since become her new favourite mark-makers.
