THEGALLERYATSTGEORGESHOUSE St. Georges Rd, Bolton ArtLab Contemporary Print Studio 27th February - 28th of April 2014. Open Monday to Friday 9am-5pm Curtator Julia Swarbrick in Collaboration Emma Kelly Head Curator Python Arts
This evening Artlab Contemporary Print Studio’s members will be opening their exhibition of new works at the Gallery. The idea of the ‘Journey’ can imply either the act of travelling from one place to another or the process of personal change and development, this exhibition of new work explores the diversity and skills of Artlab artists, showcasing their current practice and their interpretation of the theme through printmaking. Artlab Contemporary Print Studios at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) is an exceptional resource which has supported the research and development of local and international artist members for 9 years. The studios provide an environment where members can engage in debate and investigation into contemporary issues and research strategies.
Julia Swarbrick
'The Commuter' Journeys End The Commuter is a linocut which referencse historic posters from the time leading up to the the Holocaust. From the Utopias of pre war tourism with specific notions of place and family to more overt propaganda which helped promote atrocities. The narrative is incomplete and the characters are intentionally ambiguous. The work is an extract from a graphic novel which I am developing which explores the impact of bullying and its escalation both on a personal, individual level and in a wider social and political context. Journeys End belongs to the same series of prints. jswarbie@swarbiearts.co.uk Website http://swarbiearts.co.uk/
Rita Robson
‘Within the Holloway’, a diptych, depicts a journey through an ancient wood to reach a small stone shelter, and also a journey through time as the shelter falls into ruin
Tony Knox
World War Two Veteran 2013 Dusty Miller 2013 “Are you trying to find your grand dad ?� This is what one of my subjects asked me when I was photographing him. When I was eight my grandfather died. He left me with a medal from the Second World War, but no explanation of its meaning or significance. As a consequence, since 2005 I have been photographing a series of Rembrance Sunday portraits as a partial and personal record of the now dwindling number of veterans of WWII. Some of my subjects would have seen at first hand the Nazi atrocities; each of them fought against them. My work comprises a series of large, silkscreen portraits of veteran soldiers.
www.tonyknox.org.uk
Magda Stawarska-Beavan
‘13 January 2014’ Digital print on Somerset paper (60 x 180 cm) Magda Stawarska-Beavan works predominantly with sound, moving image and print, often connecting conventional printmaking processes with new technologies such as digital audio. She investigates how ethereality of sound, speech and passage of time can be translated into a two-dimensional visual image. She has exhibited, in a gallery environment as well as in public places. Her two-dimensional work has been shown recently in international printmaking shows such as: Guanlan International Print Biennial in Shenzhen, China (2013); Horyzont MTG PrintArt Kraków – Katowice, Poland 2012; 16th Space International Print Biennial, OCI Museum, Seoul, South Korea (2011) This piece is part of ‘Retelling Soundscape’ - project in
progress.
Tracy Hill
'Fragmented Mire' 2014 Working with combinations of paper based prints and 3d installation works Hill investigates the idea that we are constantly considering our personal worlds within a wider digital world of data and reference points created through modern mapping technologies. These new mapping capabilities change our perceptions and understanding of the land around us. They encourage us to reconsider how we access our rural spaces and the many stories that are held within. Through these works Hill explores responses to the sense of place experienced during walking. ‘Fragmented Mire’ is a new work, which explores the historic meres and mosses of the Northwest. These form a nationally important series of open water and peatland sites which have developed in natural depressions in the glacial drift left by the ice sheets which covered the Cheshire–Shropshire plain some 15,000 years ago. Derelict mires, as well as intact lowland raised mires, are rare habitats. There are only 2 in the North West where steps are being taken to regenerate the areas and protect the areas for future generations.
Gill Yates
JOURNEYS : PAST & PRESENT As a child I lived at the top of Brockholes Brow & journeyed to the primary school shown on the pre-motorway map I found of this area. Other childhood journeys involved walking, playing and swimming in the Ribble valley and wooded hillsides. This area was transformed into Brockholes Nature Reserve, opening in 2011 and providing me with new stunning vistas of my childhood environment turned into a wildlife water haven. Here reed beds, developed from seedlings and protected by cylinders of chicken wire, became my focus on my journeys around the reserve throughout the changing seasons since 2011. I am also captivated by light on water and strive to capture this in print.
Helene Hicks
Dog walk map Suitcase lock Shoe map - Her work concentrates on mapping local and further landscapes and combining these with the emotions of the people who tread their daily ways across them. Myths and tales are subtly woven in the finished pieces that may feature photography, print and language.
Leighton Bohl
Overcoat 2 Lithography is my preferred method of printmaking; this is an aluminium plate lithograph printed on cream Hahnemuhle etching paper. In the north of England, at least, you need a good coat before you go on any journey.
Simon Plum
I’m an artist based in Preston who specializes in painting, drawing and printmaking. My practice explores personal fables through narrative-based artworks, with (amongst other things) a mixture of quirky perspectives, sardonic humour, highly detailed drawing and vivid use of colour. I see my work as a surreal and naïve evocation of the past; an on-going series that drifts between comedy and tragedy, reality and fantasy, the past and the present. http://simonplum.com/
Robin Bentley
Palm Walk The Ninth Day I am interested in form and structure and much of my work includes the figure in one-way or another. In the work in this exhibition l have focused on the movement of the figure through space and time. The positions occupied by individuals reflect their movement relative to others that are adjacent to them and those that have been before and those that have yet to pass. Ninth day looks at the mass movement of people all aiming for the same destination. Palm walk mirrors the pattern left by individuals performing a structured dance.
Kelsey Stead
'dis·o·ri·en·ta·tion' My work focuses on the dialogue between the topography and the physical experience of place. I collect information in the form of automatic drawings, photographs, maps and combine these experiences with digital mapping to create new understanding of place - amalgamating the physical, virtual and momentary.
Diana Zwibach
My Family Pictured in these four panels is my little Zwibach family from Novi Sad, Serbia, all lost for no reason other then their ethnicity. My grandparents Josef and Felice, my aunt Jelisaveta as a beautiful bride on her wedding day next to her charming husband Stevan Vajda and their little daughter my cousin Vera then only six. My dad Tibor who survived Dachau and lived with great loss and pain died in 1975 aged only 56. My grandparents, my aunt and my cousin were deported in 1944 to Auschwitz from Novi Sad with the rest of 1595 Jews. Stevan, my uncle was killed at a Hungarian labour camp in Ukraine in 1943. Growing up as a child my parents tried to protect me from the facts of these horrific events, but sometimes the unspoken can be a stronger instrument in embedding the impressions of human fragility, suffering, love, pain and loss. My work as an artist continues to deal with human frailty and strength through the journey of life.
Colin Binns
Through the locks I explore myth and memory and their connections with places and events through mixed media painting and print. My current practice employs photography, collage and found materials as a source for ideas from urban landscapes. Pmy approach, generating an intuitive response along with an analysis of the underlying dynamics of a place. The imagery in my work is always taken from intensive research of a location, before developing abstracted ideas from visual reference points. I based the artwork Through the Locks on a recent study of Manchester city centre canals.
Deborah Neely
Dahlia at Giverny Deborah is an artist, printmaker and bookbinder. She is an MA student at the University of Central Lancashire. “Dhalia at Giverny” is part of a body of work for which Deborah drew her inspiration from a recent journey through France, visiting places of great beauty and historic interest along the Loire valley. Her works feature a series of layered, translucent silk screen images printed on acetate and mounted in Perspex.”
Theresa Taylor
'Umbilicus' I am interested in the quality of human relationships. I use abstract imagery and ideas from the natural world to express and explore these issues metaphorically , looking at personal and psychological boundaries , attachment and space. I use a technique of scoring into an aluminium sheet and attaching textured material to create a print of fluid and painterly quality. I make very small and variable editions or unique images.
James Diable
'Symbol of a Flower' This Triptych is an exploration of application and process; the journey of exploration giving a suggestion of narrative. This piece takes inspiration from pre raphaelite art and victorian symbolism. Black Dot An exploration of processes through the medium of screen print. The exploration and manipulation of techniques created a more distressed effect; evolving the original image. Also influenced by Victorian symbolism.
Denise Swanson
Art of Dying This series shows the life journey from seed to final destination of a selection of plants using photographs resembling pencil drawings to illustrate the fragility and spirituality of the plant and of life itself. Printed digitally using archival pigment inks onto fine art paper made from the natural fibres of bamboo, wrapped around a simple birch frame.
Alex Mcintosh
Untitled Born in 1990, graduating in 2012 from Manchester Met with a Ba(Hons) in Fine Art, where I specialised in Printmaking. My work continues to explore my interest in the dynamic between the views imagination and the space they experience. It was my fascination with the manner in which darkness changes our nderstand of a space, making a space less sharp and define and allowing the imagination to fil in the gaps that lead me to the motif of the forest, a space that only becomes transparent through action, with their seemingly limitless number of trees trunks and leaves shrouding their boundaries from us.
Kathryn Poole
The Anatomy of Flight explore themes of taxonomy, anatomy and a morbid curiosity for the bizarre in my drawings and prints. For this print I am examining the mechanisms of flight and migration. The image consists of 4 plates from my artist's book The Anatomy of Flight.