Monday, July 18, 2022

'Raw Edge' - Sunny Bank Mills, Farsley, Leeds, UK

Sunny Bank Mills was founded in 1829 and specialised in worsted spinning and weaving until ceasing in 2008, when it began to be transformed into creative spaces and eventually hosted its first art exhibition in 2012.

'Raw Edge', the current exhibition, brings together work by members of the Yorkshire Sculptors Group, responding to the concept of boundaries and raw edges. This concept has been approached and examined in a variety of media and by employing a variety of methods and processes by members of the group. 

The two 'District 7' pieces on show in this exhibition subtly raise the question of when a work is a painting and when it is a sculpture, where do we place the dividing line? Is there, or rather, should there be a dividing line between the two? Can a work simultaneously be a painting and a sculpture? 

Robert Rauschenberg constructed 'Combines', as he called them, which were much more overt in presence. They seemed to remove distinctions between one medium and the other, making it extremely difficult to categorise the work. 

The 'District 7' tiles are more modest in nature. From a distance, it could be assumed they were small, square paintings. Up close, the various levels of the tile components can be discerned. These are clearly solid and therefore the piece has been constructed using wood and/or MDF panels. In the past, paintings were often made of wood, the 'Mona Lisa', for example, was created with oil paint on a small panel of poplar wood. The two pieces here, however, have been deliberately built up to create a modular grid that varies in thickness, and have been painted in acrylic. They are certainly paintings and yet they have also been constructed as sculptures. 

We can therefore ask ourselves how we would categorise them and how important we feel that categorisation process is. It seems to change the perception of the work and also its meaning. As with any work, we begin by asking ourselves what is that we are looking at here and we then progress by asking further questions. From that point on, each viewer's 'meaning' of the work will be developed individually, according to the different answers proposed to each question in turn. 

It is definitely worth seeing this exhibition. Each work asks pertinent questions and makes for a very enjoyable day out in Farsley.

 


'Raw Edge', Sunny Bank Mills, Exhibition Poster



'Raw Edge', Sunny Bank Mills, Invitation



'District 7, 3x3, Tile 3', 2020



'District 7, 3x3, Tile 9', 2020



Installation shot of the 'Raw Edge' exhibition
(Photo courtesy of Sunny Bank Mills)



The two 'District 7' panels hanging on screens 
in the centre of the gallery space
(Photo courtesy of Sunny Bank Mills)



Friday, July 15, 2022

'Soanyway', Issue 12

 It was such a thrill this month to see one of my photographs on the cover of the latest edition (#12) of 'Soanyway' - the journal edited by Derek Horton and Gertrude Gibbons.



The cover photo was taken in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in an apartment complex called 'Skygarden', found in District 7 of the city. A small, empty chair forms the only immediately recognisable element within an otherwise quite abstract space. The muted colour palette adds a touch of melancholy to the scene that also possesses an almost painterly quality.  

The theme for issue 12 is: 'Recording' and 'Documentation', and contains engaging articles by the editors and others on topics such as site-specific sculpture, photographic observations of the New York subway, documenting urban landscapes, along with reviews of exhibitions at Leeds Art Gallery, University of Leicester, and an examination of the rituals and roles of archives.

I would highly recommend reading this issue and past issues of this excellent journal.

Read the current issue #12 here.

The Soanyway website landing page can be found here.