Newbury Weekly News 110517

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Newbury Weekly News

Welcome to the sculpture zones

Sculpture is made for and responds to the situation in which it is sited

Open Studios: Outdoor sculpture exhibitions at the Donnington Grove Temple Garden and Shaw House, open daily until Tuesday, May 30

Paradoxically, within the negative space you sense the bulk of the seated figure. To the right, Colin Underhay’s rough-hewn, monumental Yew Seat leads your eye into the group of sculptures in front of the temple. The yew wood itself dominates, as if still a living tree. It is both carved and intact, a shortened trunk supporting the seat. Five horizontal scorched incisions and the hollowed-out back suggest a vestigial seated figure. At Shaw, his Oak and Yew Bench is a heavy, faux-rustic structure with a triangular back, oak seat and burnt-yew back and arm rests, the two woods complementing each other. Traditionally made, it has wooden dowels and no modern fixings. To the left of the Donnington entrance, you glimpse the alert head of Diccon Dadey’s Spooked deer, staring directly at the viewer, ready for flight. Dadey’s sculptures are constructed with re-used, re-formed metal, often pleasingly rusted. At Shaw House the hollow structure of his leopard descending from a tree is formed of discs, with a coiled-metal tail. It is full of animation, with palpable definition of muscle. Michael Fairfax shows Sounding Slabs at both sites, tactile charred-fir sentinels bearing tensioned piano strings. At Donnington they seem to guard the temple itself. Touch the strings, lean in with your ear up against the side of the structures, and hear and feel the sound resonate within and animate the works. Gavin Wilkinson shows five formal, highly-resolved abstract metal sculptures, re-using industrial materials. In Air Sketch , joined, polished, curved aluminium forms hover across the ground, planes intersecting at either end, polished and ground surfaces contrasting with each other. Cloud Ten is formed of billowing horizontal metal rings bearing sky-blue dripping paint. They lie at differing heights, floating on thin metal supports. Equivalence contrasts materials and form: metal and wood, convex and concave, triangles and curves, patina and paint. Frizzle is a hollow ‘wigwam’ of self-supporting, half- painted metal rods of differing heights, containing upwardly thrusting metal poles. Incline is on a smaller scale, combining half-rounded, offset aluminium discs bearing an opaque flat plane of perspex; geometric and organic shapes work with and play off each other. Paul Harvey shows semi-abstracted works in cast marble and cold cast pewter, which stem from Art Deco forms, reminiscent of some Eric Gill sculpture. His Barn Owl , wings spread, has clean, wide, clear-cut planes and

The two venues have their own distinct characteristics. The rear lawn at Shaw House is a flat, tree-rimmed, contained area, with sculpture placed around the edge of the lawn. The Donnington Grove Temple Garden, larger in extent, is a walled garden landscaped with ponds, mounds and tree-lines, with sculpture spread throughout the space. Work at Donnington has been placed in relation to three sightlines, evident as you enter. Straight ahead, and isolated, you see Johannes von Stumm’s Sacred Buddha , a quiet, contemplative yet commanding semi-abstracted bronze.

UNDER the aegis of the Open Studios scheme, 13 artists are showing sculpture in two major outdoor exhibitions – in the Japanese Temple Garden at Donnington Grove and on the rear lawn at Shaw House – the sister shows both curated by Jim Crockatt in his first curatorial role. Sculpture is made for and responds to the situation in which it is sited, so here the work not only relates to the landscape settings, but also to the particular spaces within those environments in which individual sculptures have been installed.

Clockwise fromabove:worksatDonnington GroveTempleGarden byHilary Arnold-Baker Ref:19-0917F, MarieAckers Ref:19-0917B, GavinWilkinson Ref:19-0917A, DianaBarraclough Ref:19-0917C, PaulHarvey Ref:19-0917D and Michael Fairfax

varying the configuration of the metal rods. Diana Pattendon’s two ceramics lead the eye into the Shaw House show. Her Queen Anne Wig and Exotic Pineapple both give a nod to the historic Jacobean mansion. Sitting on plinths of stacked industrial slabs, the abstract contrasts with the figurative. At Donnington, she works mainly in resin; three carp swim along a wall; three oversized bees intrude into a natural habitat. Diana Barraclough’s two decorated ceramic structures stand at the intersection of the Donnington ponds. Flowing River is a stack of five solid rounded forms with glazed decoration; the totem-like Mitate also bears coloured incisions. Lone Hudson shows ceramic stoneware. Her Punched-Through Vessel is pierced by a glazed light-green opening and a top indentation. At Shaw she shows Three Pods , irregular, rounded, holed forms sitting on thin metal legs. Jane Cannon’s work has moved on in scale and approach. At Shaw she shows Reduced Cube , a very pleasing formal abstract piece in coiled galvanised wire, simultaneously both solid and non-solid. LIN WILKINSON

curves. His pewter Heron sits alert by the back pond, waiting to dive on to a fish, its folded, serrated wings like the forms at the top of New York’s Chrysler Building. His pewter Guinea Fowl is an abstracted ovoid, like an ancient shield, but for the stylised head and beak. The form of Marie Ackers’ marble-resin cheetah echoes to some extent Harvey’s work. Semi-stylised, it is lean, watchful and superbly feline. Several other works are of elongated Etruscan-esque riders on horseback, the pieces varying in scale and resin admixtures. Her Three Riders at Shaw, the largest in scale, is the most convincing. Hilary Arnold-Baker shows Memory of Nikko , its Japanese form reflecting the setting. Red vertical and horizontal open wooden struts support a solid offset black cube. A formal minimalist construction of open and closed forms, it is resolved, quietly commanding and masterfully constructed. Martin Eastabrook’s Aeolian Dance 1 and 2 move in the breeze. Clusters of thin metal supports bear flower-like ceramic objects, the two pieces varying only by the configuration of the three wooden ground supports. In one, they are arranged in a triangle, in the other they lie in offset parallel, thus also

My work owes much to the motivations of the Arte Povera movement, emphasising the use of found material, the marks of its previous function resounding within the constructed works as a renewed aesthetic. I believe that there are no limits to the possibilities revealed by creative exploration, so each piece that I make is a new discovery for me as I attempt not to repeat myself Gavin Wilkinson