GAIA Exhibition: New exhibition comes to 35 Chapel Walk
GAIA is a new exhibition taking place at 35 Chapel Walk from 10-22 November. It will feature three Sheffield artists: John Birks, who works in ceramics & printmaking, Rosemary Clark, who works in ceramics and painting, and Lynne Chapman, who works in textiles and sculpture. Throughout the exhibition, the artists will be working in the space and available to chat to.
Lynne Chapman
"My work is always materials-led. Pieces are largely unplanned, driven forward in response to the possibilities and limitations of specific media. I enjoy employing unfamiliar materials, or enforcing randomness on my marks, colours or shapes to encourage things to evolve in new directions. I'm interested in the balance between randomness, conscious decision-making and instinct.
"My petroglyph series is inspired by the ambiguous glimpses of ancient peoples, painted in caves or carved into rock, echoes whose meanings often get obscured by time. My work uses a mixture of real and imagined petroglyphs, employing layers of drawing, stitch and fabric to mirror the layers of time which enfold the ancient markings."
John Birks
"My work experiments with colour, texture and form. I enjoy the physicality of the processes, whether I am building plates for printmaking or sculpting clay. My collagraphs often take inspiration from the landscape, both real and imagined, but both the prints and my ceramics have become increasingly abstract.
"My ceramic work is often about ways of containing space. I cut perforations into the clay to change the nature of that space. I like the contradiction between the extreme solidity of the ceramic and the transparency the holes lend to it."
Rosemary Clark
"I paint to capture a moment in time, when out walking or on my allotment, to reflect changing seasons and a sense of being connected to, and at peace with, the world.
"Japanese traditions, which find beauty in asymmetry influence me: the incomplete, the fragile, the fleeting space, used to express potentiality. I use clay to explore antiquity, to question what it means to be human in a modern world. By using traditional coiling techniques and wood firing, I explore the natural beauty of the material, while pushing it beyond its strength, so it warps, cracks or breaks. Adding glass and gold makes a statement about the fragility of the material, enhances the form and highlights the imperfect.
"As an artist, I can manipulate materials. It doesn't matter if they break, but this process mirrors what I feel we, as humans, are doing to the planet, pushing Earth to the limits of what it is able to regulate."
GAIA runs from 10 to 22 November at 35 Chapel Walk. Entry is free.
Flick Jackson
