Hermione Allsopp
Hermione Allsopp makes sculptural work by collecting objects and furniture and re-creating them into new forms or compositions. These are familiar, known, domestic items that have been discarded in charity or junk shops – not, inert materials, but ones that carry collective attachments, memories and meanings. As sculpture, these re-done, or un-done-up objects begin to exist as something else and are intended to raise questions about the value and material nature of every day objects. Through the choice of objects, and the techniques she employs, she explores the boundary between repulsion and attraction, ideas of taste and notions of desire. The work also reflects on wider topics related to consumerism, psychological and physical interiors and exteriors.
Joe Packer
Joe Packer’s recent paintings could be described as invented landscapes with a psychological element. These paintings try to evoke memories of places, but at the same time, they have evolved through making processes that are not preplanned or prescriptive, creating paintings that aim to function as self-contained worlds, constructed objects with a kind of inner life of their own. Not reflecting the landscape, but recreating it. The paintings occupy a kind of hinterland between abstraction, where the brushstrokes are non-referential, and figuration, where the forms and spaces depicted allude to landscape, without being overtly descriptive.
Addy Gardner
My current body of work is based on a journey of discovery into my thoughts and feelings about ‘wild’ places. It is primarily prompted by readings based on both the biodiversity and climate crisis, as well as land issues which have contributed to the extremely dire state that wild places in Britain, and the world, have arrived at. The work is part of a documentation of feeling towards both nature now and nature as a pure magical entity; one that is seen in childhood fairytales of deep dark forests. My work has focused on the politics of ecology and has been informed by reading in this area. It exists amongst, and is informed by, contemporary artists concerned with being part of a call to action on these issues. I primarily work with paint and mixed media on canvas and the main focus of the work is landscape.
North Wall Arts Centre Exhibition 2024, Addy Gardner Paintings
Selly Gardner Photograpy
With my photographic artwork I aim to show the beauty and the resilience of the wild. Often I highlight only a tiny detail, a special smidgen of a flower. The light works in the same way, to reveal the story the wildflower wants to tell, and what it wants to obscure with shadow.
If you get close enough you can see their grace & beauty, not only when they are in bloom, but in their waning. When they are letting go of their seeds and preparing to pave the way for more life, more wilderness. Such beauty. Such wild perfection.
Candyfloss, Giclee print in recycled frame, Selly Gardner Photography 2023