Readers’ Day at The Ropewalk

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.

Verity Adriana, will showcase two bodies of her photographic work at The Ropewalk in September 2020. These photographic works are a fusion of ephemeral in-scene installation and photography that use light and optical devices to convey ideas of universal connections. Selections from Adriana’s work have previously been exhibited with British Journal of Photography in Arles, France, Life Framer in Rome, Italy and the Center For Fine Art Photography in Denver, Colorado.

Adriana grew up in Hull and regularly visited her father in Barton who would narrate the history of the (then) disused rope and tile factory buildings during walks up to the river, sparking a fascination with the area.  This exhibition is the first time Lumen will be shown as a full body of work, and the artist chose The Ropewalk for this because of her connections to the place as well as it being the location of where much of these works were made.

Lumen, (2015 ongoing), made along the river Humber, investigates how light and photography have the power to transform ordinary and familiar subject matter and materials into moments of sublime experience by challenging our perceptions.  Light has the power to transform and transfix; photography is a medium that captures light; plastic is a material that holds light, and light itself is our connection to the beginnings of existence. This body of work reflects the existential human nature to look to the universal, a theme particularly relevant in the contemporary world.

Legacy, (2018), is a body of work created by Adriana in response to the legacy of the impact of the year of Hull City of Culture 2017 within the city’s spaces and places and is a synthesis of careful research done within the various communities and organisations involved and affected. The images show Adriana’s characteristic use of light, along with symbolic devices such as smoke and reflective surfaces, that challenge the viewer to consider the implications for the city and to reflect on their own experiences.

Adriana currently lives in Leeds, Yorkshire where she is Course Director of the BA Photography program at Leeds Trinity University. See www.verityadriana.com for more information.

Studio Artist, Lee Sass is our artist featured in the Box Gallery throughout September. Lee is a freelance artist, printmaker, creative director and social engagement artist. Her prints are inspired by her late husband, who worked alongside Lee in performances. These prints and textiles embody strong women and tough men, they are made from detailed card cut outs. These card cut outs are often transformed into screen prints and used on textiles. All of Lee’s work is connect by stories and linked to her past.