Newbury Weekly News

Thursday, May 11, 2017

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Welcome to the

sculpture zones

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Open Studios: Outdoor sculpture exhibitions at the Donnington

Grove Temple Garden and Shaw House, open daily until

Tuesday, May 30

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

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

Sculpture is made

for and responds

to the situation in

which it is sited

Newbury Weekly News