'Here, There and Now' at Barnsley Civic, Level Zero, Yorkshire Sculptors Group Show 2026

 The group show 'Here, There and Now' was hosted at Barnsley Civic, UK from 11 April to 23 May 2026 and once again featured work by members of the Yorkshire Sculptors Group.

The exhibition was held on Level Zero, which was previously not used being used in the regular scheduling of the arts centre. The rough, undecorated nature of the space lent itself very sympathetically to its use for contemporary sculpture.

I exhibited the piece 'District 7, 11x8, White Relief', 2022 with the piece's monochrome, rectilinear arrangement juxtaposing well with the rough-hewn wall on which it was hung.

The warm, angled light helped the piece glow within the space and accentuated the shadows across the shallow relief of the composition. 

The well-attended private view was held on the evening of Friday 10 April.

Exhibition Poster

'District 7, 11x8, White Relief' in situ at Barnsley Civic

The piece showing the lighting effect

Members of the Yorkshire Sculptors Group surveying the venue space

My chosen space, providing a rough-hewn surface to counter the work

Exhibition handout:

'Assembly' - Wakefield Cathedral, West Yorkshire, UK

The term 'assembly' could be used to describe a group of people gathered together for a common purpose, or a set of components that could be combined into a larger, loosely or tightly integrated object or relationship. 

At Wakefield Cathedral, the term was used to describe the collection of work submitted from 16 members of the Yorkshire Sculptors Group. Each piece of work sought to respond to, blend in with, or even react with (or against) the beautiful cathedral. 

'Assembly' - Wakefield Cathedral

Exhibition Poster

Following on closely from the exhibition at Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley, a piece was created specifically for the cathedral environment and, in particular, for the north-east corner of the building. The grid formed by the stone floor, the masonry blocks of the walls and especially the memorial plaques attached to the walls at regular intervals were the inspiration for the white relief panel that was created for this exhibition and presented on a simple, wooden easel.

The colours that are usually such a feature of the 'District 7' panels were in this case erased, leaving a monochrome surface of painted wood and mdf squares that emphasised the undulating surface of the work.

Once installed, the piece seemed to work well in the environment. What was not anticipated was the incredible luminosity of the work as the sun traversed the building through the day and eventually focused a glorious shaft of light onto the panel. It is always a pleasure to discover an accidental quality such as this, one that renders the work in a far more sympathetic way than was ever planned or hoped for. 

I would recommend a visit to Wakefield to see this exhibition before it closes on 29th August 2022. There are many other wonderful works to investigate, sited throughout the interior of the cathedral, some of which are discreetly hidden, awaiting discovery.

A pdf of the exhibition catalogue can be viewed here.

The Yorkshire Sculptors Group website can be found here.

'District 7, 11x8, White Relief', 2022

Installed in the North-east corner of the Cathedral

Closer view of the work

'District 7, 11x8, White Relief', 2022 - Detail

(Photo courtesy of Vincent James)

Wakefield Cathedral in all its glory

'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)

Work Update - March 2019

Following on from my previous post 'Open-ended Work' of August 2018, I have now worked my way round to pushing forward the wall relief sculpture derived from the 'District 7' print.

I had set aside this piece for a while to attend to other projects and at that stage I had built up several stacks of square plates based upon a system I had devised to determine the heights of each block (determined by the direction of the drawn, hatched lines in my preparatory drawing).

9 square wooden plates of plywood were obtained and these shall form the baseplates onto which the blocks shall be attached. The resulting 9 elements will then be worked on, perhaps using gesso to create an appropriate ground to paint onto and a further surface for drawing. Each of the nine elements need to be integrated so that they read and a unified object.

Once I have achieved this I will need to determine the distance between each block so that they sit comfortably together, creating a field. I will update more once I have begun painting the blocks.

The blocks during the process of stacking them to appropriate heights

Laying out the blocks onto the new baseplates

Final intended viewing angle once the plates have been fully resolved

City View Bus Photographic Journey

An air-conditioned minibus runs from Phu My Hung in District 7 to the Lucky Plaza on Dong Khoi in District 1 and is my regular way to travel into the centre of Saigon.

I thought I would like to record the journey as the bus travels from District 7 to the Saigon river-front section of District 1 before arriving at the Lucky Plaza.

Phu My Hung to Dong Khoi: Bus route

After considering several ways to record the journey (I didn't wish to simply record the entire journey on video as I wanted to adopt a particular strategy to the exercise) I thought I would take a photograph at intervals throughout the trip. I decided upon 5 minute intervals between each photograph as in this way the decision of what to photograph would be taken out of my hands. I would simply use my watch as a guide and take a photograph of whatever was outside at that time. Additionally I would not attempt to select or direct the photograph, but would try to minimise any shakiness due to the movement of the bus or the unevenness of the road surface (though this was not always so successful).

When I boarded the minibus I noticed that most of the windows were covered with an anti-glare dotted screen but I found one window in the rear of the bus that had been left clear. I sat on the left-hand side, facing forward, directly above the wheel. Although this was the only clear window, it was also unfortunate as each time the bus ran over a speed-bump (there are several in the initial part of the  trip) the entire bus bounced and threw me up out of my seat. This was not very comfortable but at least I had the opportunity to take the photographs I needed.

As the driver closed the minibus door and prepared to leave, I took the first photograph (in a square format) and then more photographs every 5 minutes until the bus had reached its destination. In all I took 7 photographs:

Photo taken: 10:30am

Photo taken: 10:35am

Photo taken: 10:40am

Photo taken: 10:45am

Photo taken: 10:50am

Photo taken: 10:55am

Photo taken: 11:00am

Video compilation of the bus trip