Exhibition: Drawing down the Feminine

Poetry, Painting, Performance, Ceramics, Film, Drawing, Monotype, Sculpture, Animation  

An innovative and visionary group show exploring and celebrating the sacred feminine comes straight to The Plough Arts Centre from The Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall.

Curated by Kate Walters the show will explore and celebrate the hidden world of the feminine principle through paintings, poetry, drawings, sculpture, film, writing, talks, workshops and music.  

 

The work shown will awaken and restore the lost feminine, the quiet voice within ourselves and all our connections and relations. The gift of dreams, bodily knowing, the prompting of the animal, the earth and the feminine principle as nurturer and care- giver will be considered in a show that promises to pay attention to the small things and the spaces in between.

 

Curator Kate Walters said: 

“This group has its origins in a dream which showed me a picture of how artists could work together cooperatively.

I contacted artists who share a sympathetic view of the natural world in their practice. With a wide range of imagery and mediums certain threads connect us, reflecting our feelings about animals and hidden, inner lives. These are ways of making art which call on bodily impulses such as the breath, insight and the gentle felt response.

We've been meeting occasionally for about a year, sharing thoughts and images about our practice, and we are now presenting our first group exhibition.”

 

Artists:

Karen Lorenz,  Penny Florence,  Jim Carter, Max Burrows, Maggie O’Brien, Valerie Dalton, Jo Jewers,  Otter Rose-Johns, Sara Samuelsson,  Tanya Krzywinska, Faye Dobinson,  Karina Hosking,  Scarlette Von B,  Mat Osmond  and Kate Walters.

 

 

Karen Lorenz

Animation

Karen Lorenz uses animation to explore the interconnectedness of things. Her work brings a wry and playful approach to the qualities of the feminine and the nature of perception and projection, instilling it with life.

 

Penny Florence

Digital Poetry and mixed visual media

Penny Florence’s work in digital poetry and mixed visual media concerns activating silence: in the negative spaces of images; between words; between languages; and in transitions between forms. Here, in the seeming-blankness, the feminine meets the universal.

 

Jim Carter

Sculpture

Jim Carters sculpture is concerned with the destructive, regenerative and transformative qualities of the female principle as it manifests itself in landscape.  

 

Kate Walters

Monotypes and Drawings

Monotypes made on the Isle of Iona, tuning into the ancient Sheela-na-gigs, the Virgins, the Nuns and the Madonna.

https://ionaartresidencies.wordpress.com

 

Maggie O’Brien

Paintings and sculptural constructions

An installation of painting and mixed media constructions which question our relationship with the natural world and the different ways in which men, women and animals inhabit and negotiate it. The work engages with the concepts of re-wilding, and with an approach to nature that seeks to regenerate and re-balance rather than simply conserve.

 

Otter Rose Johns

Sculpture

Otter Rose Johns work involves wrapping, covering, protection and nurture. All these things can keep things safe but also have the potential to cause harm. Wrapping is used in many past traditions and also in ceremony. 

Sara Samuelsson

Large scale monotypes

Sara Samuelsson’s monotypes capture the essence and spirit of Nature through energy-channelling strokes and gestures creating work that draws on both Zen aesthetics and philosophy and Western folk lore and mysticism.

 

Valerie Dalton

Sculpture, drawing

Valerie Dalton’s work embraces the search for meaning through the exploration of deep darkness working with dreams, myths and fairy-tales, from separation and brokenness towards wholeness and completion - from Eva to Ave - in the desire to share and communicate this transformational healing journey with others.

 

 

Max Burrows

Mixed Media Drawings

Often densely layered and cumulative Max Burrow’s drawings of the hands of mothers are created whilst listening to the stories behind their activity. These activities and stories may or may not be connected to motherhood but they influence the density of the drawings, their composition and whether they are quick and ethereal or more deeply worked and developed. Max will be making work in the gallery during the show, working with members of the public.

 

Professor Tanya Krzyninska

Painting

Tanya Krzyninska’s work draws on aspects of female embodiment, using vocabularies of magic and myth to recover what is hidden or marginalised. Alert to affordance, she unearths anthropomorphic figures by scratching into layers of oil to divine forms of power variant to dominant modes.

 

Mat Osmond

Poetry books with accompanying audio recordings and wall mounted illustrations 

Award winning Fly Sings and soon to be published Stone are both books containing single narrative poems, with accompanying drawings. In Fly Sings both words and images are by Mat Osmond while Stone is written by Scottish poet Em Strang – and illustrated by Mat Osmond. It will be published by Atlantic press in March 2015 and launched at the show. All monies raised by sales of  Stone are being donated to Trees for Life, a charity dedicated to replanting the Caledonian forest:  http://www.treesforlife.org/ 

 

A book-table display of Strandline Books ( http://www.strandlinebooks.co.uk/ ), which will feature the latest book FLY SINGS, but will include all four of the books to date, all of them being informed by our theme.

 

Scarlette Von B

Performance and Photographic Documentation

When she is performing Artist and Singer Scarlette Von B has discovered she  attracts ‘orbs’ ; discs of light which she describes as a pure energy force called in by the vibration of her voice which can be revealed  in photographs. Scarlette Von B will perform at the gallery and photographs taken before, during and after her performance will be displayed.

Jo Jewers

Mixed Media Constructions

Jo Jewers’ uses destructed dolls and found objects such as clocks to make sculptural pieces that are a personal interrogation of the role of woman as  daughter, mother and grandmother. The enclosed spaces, cages and masks she constructs can be interpreted as being either protective or oppressive. They are motivated by a desire to understand who we are and why we do what we do.

 

Karina Hosking

Painting

Karina Hosking’s practice is based around and fed by unseen spiritual worlds which she believes continually filter and seep into ours. It also investigates the telepathic and instinctive bond between mother and child. Her painting methods involve repeatedly layering and randomly scratching back paint to allow fragmented images to appear like communications from other realms. 

 

Faye Dobinson

Drawings and photographic documentation of performance

Faye Dobinson’s drawings are inspired by the The Red Shoes, an ancient tale which laments and warns against the loss of the wild nature of women who take on instead a ‘too tame life’. In a performance documented by photographer Emma Griffin, Dobinson renacted the tale, scarring and marking paper as she danced. Fragments of this paper have been used in Dobinson's drawings for the show which will be exhibited alongside Griffin's photographs.