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.
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
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
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