New Work in Progress

Stilt Structure II (work in progress), found, recycled & waste materials: wood branches, coir, copper wire, handmade naturally dyed & recycled fabric, leather, plastic netting, polyester stuffing, jute, sisal, wool, thread, nylon tights

I’ve been creating hybrid forms around the notion of resilience, adaptation, making do. These precarious, awkward sculptural assemblages incorporate hand-stitched and woven textiles, which carry histories of land, past lives, labour, craft, trade routes, consumerism and waste. Labour-intensive processes relate to care and repair.

Grateful to Roger Spear for the use of his wood workshop and technical assistance.

As Old as the Hills

I’m co-curating a project As Old as the Hills, rooted in heritage and environment, highlighting issues of sustainability. It culminates in a contemporary art exhibition plus events for SAW Festival in the Bauhaus building, Glastonbury. 10 artists will create site-responsive work, some with the community, developing collaborative art: installation, sculpture, textiles, film, photography, performance. Our artworks will respond to place, deep time, climate change: floods, water pollution, and precarity of the peat bogs. The project will be approached as a collective conversation. We want to celebrate biodiversity in the levels & marshes, re-framing the notion ‘as old as the hills’ as forward-thinking rather than anti-progressive.

Upcoming Drop-in Workshop at Collett Park Day, Shepton Mallet, 8 June, with me & Jan Ollis making simple paper casts and embedding river & sea debris. All day; all welcome! Work made will be part of the final As Old as the Hills exhibition.

Awaiting news on our ACE project grant application; work + events will be scaled according to funds. Visit @as.old.as.the.hills for more about the project and my Artist Instagram Takeover this week.

Played and Remade (launched this week)

Thrilled to be part of a new collaborative art & music project with The Piano Shop Bath. Discarded piano parts have been upcycled and transformed into artworks. My 3 pieces Nest, String Theory, & Starfish are for sale. All artworks are available to view online and in The Piano Shop Bath, 1&2 Canton Place BA1 6AA. See article in The Guardian and visit @playedandremade for more info.

Nest, for Played and Remade

Elysia

In April I collaborated with dance artist Vanessa Grasse on her Elysia R&D project in a residency at Create@#8, Shepton Mallet for a week. We collected materials on walks, hand dyed natural recycled fabric remnants with homemade botanical inks, and made eco sculptural wearable artworks. The work relates to hybridity, interconnection between the human and non-human world. The name’s inspired by Elysia chlorotica, a sea slug with plant-like qualities - living testament to hybridity and symbiosis.

It was fascinating creating sculptural textiles to move with the body, and see elements in action.  We shared work in progress on our last day, encouraged people to make a small part, and were treated to a performance - those watching were transfixed. See more in my previous blog.

Elysia, work in progress

Upcoming

Solastalgia Exhibition, Truro Cathedral, Cornwall, 1-14 July. This follows an excellent publication about Environmental art, edited by Summer Auty.  I’ll be showing Glut and Pyre.

Site visits for future projects

Tout Quarry, Portland; Avalon Marshes; Bridies Mount; Mendip Hills

Take a look at my website additions, and follow my instagram channel for more regular updates

Sack

Sack; found, discarded & recycled materials (mostly from Barreiro post-industrial wasteland and Lisbon): jute, fabric (some botanically hand-dyed), twine, plastic, nylon, polystyrene, rope, wood, wire, thread; 2024. Photo by Celso Rose, PADA Gallery, Barreiro, Portugal

Sack (iteration V). I envisaged my final piece being installed in the site that inspired the work - an abandoned post-industrial wasteland of plastic, concrete and steel debris. Image created by Ellie Foreman-Peck. a virtual rendition of my idea, as it wasn’t possible to install due to logistical and time constraints.

Me with Sack. Photo by Ticiano Rottenstein

PADA Residency Exhibition, Barreiro, Portugal. Photo by Celso Rose

Sack (iteration IV), sited on river Tagus beach. I returned dismantled parts of my stilt structure to where they were found here. Photo by Celso Rose

Sack (iteration II)

Sack stitched together, with stilt structure

Me with stilt structure

Sack (iteration I). Sited as a hanging in the post-industrial wasteland, Barriero, Portugal - the site that inspired the work. Photos above & below by Celso Rose

Sack; mixed media relief collage: discarded objects/materials & graphite rubbings

Sack is a site-responsive artwork, created during my PADA art residency in Barreiro, near Lisbon, Portugal in February. The work evolved in stages, as a response to PADA’s history as a jute warehouse, and the nearby post-industrial toxic wasteland. The bodily form, a container of waste, is made from a hand-stitched patchwork of discarded materials/offcuts I collected in the locality, especially jute sacks. The warp and weft of the weavings reflect grids in urban surrounds. Colours reflect yellow wild flowers and lichen growing on concrete; and reds/oranges of iron and sulphur..

In Ursula Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, she describes the sack as ‘belly of the universe.. a ‘womb.. tomb…. unending story.’ It follows Elizabeth Fisher’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Human Evolution:. She suggests ’the first cultural device was probably a recipient’ (rather than a spear/stick). Symbol of a softer story. It matters what stories you tell (Donna Harraway).

I loved the residency. It was an intensive month working in a spacious studio alongside other residency artists, exploring the area, and utilising waste materials. My work was documented/filmed in sites relevant to its development, thanks to Celso Rose, and exhibited in our final residency exhibition. Days were long, many hours spent collecting found materials in the industrial park and along river Tagus beach to use in the work; back and forth with trolley loads.. I made a short film of this process (below). The tall stilt structure was made from found wood and rope from the beach. A new process for me was weaving found/to-hand materials into artworks, which became part of the larger piece, hand-stitched together to form the giant sack. They were laborious processes, and at times I wasn’t sure it would all pull together.

Our exhibition Private View event was a great success. It was lovely to see an old schoolfriend, Sonia there, and I’m grateful for the feedback I received from visitors. At the end of the residency, after de-installation, I placed the raft section of my stilt structure on the wall at PADA studios (pic 13 in grid below). I’m extremely grateful to Tim Ralston for hosting and for his technical support, all the artists involved for their comradeship and help, and Tania Geiroto Marcelino for curating the show. Sack is a living sculpture that will adapt, perhaps grow, according to future sites.

Current and upcoming exhibitions and projects:

Casting Shadows ACEarts Somerton, Somerset TA11 7NB;  2 March - 6 April (Tues-Sat), with Royal Society of Sculptors members.

Stilt Structure I; found, recycled & waste materials: wood, bark, coir, copper wire, leaves, pod, grass stems, charred feathers, fabric, plastic netting, polyester stuffing, jute, tennis ball, sisal, khadi paper, wool, thread, coffee beans, cardamom seeds, nutmeg pods, rice, nylon tights, oil; 2024

Sustainable Art Open, Atkinson Gallery, Somerset BA16 0YD. Book a free slot here to visit. Open 9:30am-5pm, 21 Feb - 21 March (Closed Sun - Tues). Tel: 01458 444322.

A giant collage installation with text spanned the galleries of the Baptist Chapel during the Shepton Mallet Snowdrops Festival in February.  Themed ‘Nature Unbound’, the work was created in a workshop with me, Polly Hall, and community, installed by Georgia Freely. Photos below: 1-4,6,8 Andy Ladhams; 5,7 Kirsten Madeira-Ravell

Excited about an upcoming collaboration with dance artist Vanessa Grasse. We will be working together in a residency over a 5 day period to create sustainable wearable sculptures for Vanessa to perform with as part of her choreographic project Elysia.

I’m co-curating an art project As Old as the Hills with Jan Ollis. Residencies will lead to an immersive exhibition with 10 artists + events in the Zig Zag building, Glastonbury for Somerset Art Weeks Festival ’24.

Back to teaching at Bath College. If you’re interested (or know someone who is), do sign up to my next Love 2 Learn Sculpture, Painting, Drawing or Life Drawing courses.

Please follow me on Instagram for more regular updates and images.

Have a wonderful Easter!

PADA Residency

I’m half way through a PADA art residency in Barreiro, near Lisbon, Portugal. I’m embracing the rigorous schedule of work, and a massive studio alongside other inspiring artists from across the globe. Sited within a post-industrial zone, parts of which have gone to ruin through toxic contamination and bankruptcy. The dystopian wastelands a shocking, mind-opening example of the repercussions of industrial/economic growth and ‘progress’.  Pyrite was used in making fertiliser. It oxidises, creating toxic sulphuric acid. Skeletal structures, piles of waste, remnants of plastic leakage, warped and crystallised into unfamiliar forms, materials mangled and tangled. Remains of disaster. Shadows of the past. Reminder of our future..

I’m responding to the dystopian wasteland and PADA’s history as a jute warehouse. Vasco da Gama discovered India, where jute originates. Trade routes, colonisation (eg Mombasa/Malindi..) mass production, and the Carnation Revolution (‘74) ensued.

I’m making a colossal sack, and stilt structure to support it. Sack is a bodily form, bundle, container of waste, made from a patchwork of discarded materials/offcuts gathered locally, especially jute sacks. Offcuts include Indian fabric from Malindi. Grateful to @soniapicolo who helped me source waste fabric in Lisbon. Some of the patches are weavings I’ve made with stuff from the wasteland, reflecting grids in surrounds, and warp and weft of jute. Others botanically hand-dyed - all hand-stitched together.  Colours of yellow wild flowers. moss growing on concrete, reds/oranges of iron and sulphur..

In Ursula Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, the sack represents the ‘belly of the universe..a ‘womb.. tomb.. unending story.. hope’. In a preceding book, Elizabeth Fisher claims man’s ‘first cultural device was probably a recipient’ (not bludgeon).

Collecting/scavenging materials has been part of my process. For the stilt structure I hauled a 4 metre pole back along river Tagus in a storm!

We’ve also had a bit of time to enjoy eating out, listening to local fado music, and visiting exhibitions in Lisbon. I had a visit from Mark Richards (Royal Society of Sculptors), and met up with an old schoolfriend Sonia, at the Berlinde de Bruyckere exhibition at MAC/CCB. Overwhelmed by the powerful work, curated in the huge avant-garde galleries. Glorious yet repelling bodily forms.

I’ll post final pics of my PADA work in my next blog. To keep more up-to-date with my ongoings follow me on Instagram.

Upcoming Exhibitions

PADA Residency Exhibition, Rua 42, n2, Parque Empresarial da Quimiparque,
2830-904 Barreiro, Portugal; Sat 24 Feb, PV 6-9pm.

Sustainable Art Open, Atkinson Gallery, Millfield School, Butleigh Rd, Street, Somerset BA16 0YD. PV Wednesday 21 Feb, 7.15pm. Book a free slot here to see it during our open hours. Featuring artists who work with environmentally-friendly materials and incorporate sustainable practices. Open 9:30am-5pm, from Wed 21 Feb - Thurs 2 March (Closed Sun - Tues).

Casting Shadows ACEarts, Market Place, Somerton, TA11 7NB; 2 March - 6 April; with Royal Society of Sculptors members. You’re invited to meet the artists on Saturday 2nd March between 11am-1pm. The exhibition runs from 2 March - 6 April.  I’ll be showing a new piece Stilt Structure I. It would be great to see you!

Shepton Mallet Snowdrops Festival, 12-18 Feb: A giant scroll-like mixed media collage installation, with text, is spanning the galleries of the Baptist Chapel, Shepton Mallet. It’s on show from 16-17 Feb during the Festival (theme ‘Nature Unbound’). Created in a workshop with me, writer Polly Hall, and community. Poetic words were laser cut onto the finished scroll. Georgia Freely and Polly installed the work while I’m away. See full diary here. Do visit if in the area.

Delighted to announce we’ve achieved our match-funding for a new project I’m co-curating with Jan Ollis: As Old as the Hills. Thanks to: The Arts Society Wessex area, a local charitable trust, Simon & Chrisi Kennedy Paddy O’ Hagan, & Ben Malin. Fingers crossed our ACE application is successful.. Residencies will lead to an immersive exhibition and events in the historic Zig Zag building, Glastonbury for Somerset Art Weeks Festival ’24. Rooted in heritage and environment, with community engagement, we have some excellent artists on board. Do follow our new instagram account.

Really pleased with exploration and outcomes from participants of my Online Sculpture Course - see their work below:

New Work on Show for Wander_Land, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens

Flags of the Forest, reclaimed and found materials, 2023.. Photo Russell Sach

After months of prep and an intense week installing my work is now on show in Wander_Land, a large scale artist-led group exhibition of new sculpture at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens and Gallery, Penzance, Cornwall. The exhibition is about landscape and wandering, and includes 28 artists from Royal Society of Sculptors - open daily 1 July - 5 Aug, 11-4. Closing Event 5 Aug 11-4. The show spans several spaces inside and out. Works range in style and materiality, some pushing sculpture to its edges. It’s been a joy working together alongside great colleagues, and behind the scenes with steering group Seamus Moran, Mark Richards, Ann-Margreth Bohl, and curator/writer Martin Holman. See more here. Our Opening Evening was followed by a busy first weekend with Artist Talks. You can listen to artists talk about their work in a series of podcasts led by Doug Burton. Mine is here.

I created 2 pieces: Flags of the Forest (outdoors) and Above and Below (indoors).

Flags of the Forest. Photo Russell Sach

Flags of the Forest. Photo Barbara Beyer

Art writer Martin Holman, who assisted us with the curation, wrote in his introduction to the show:

‘Fiona Campbell’s ‘Above and Below’ distils that essentialness of the all-round effect of nature and transports it into the gallery as if challenging the enclosure that comes with architecture.’

‘The thicket of stem-like upright forms and trailing translucent pennants on the grass bank… suggests another way marker or a minor encampment of a travelling band. At the same time as these colourful ideas emerge, others focused on sculptural properties like line, volume, space and surface occur. The piece assembles a wide array of natural matter and woven fabrics acquired in all manner of exchange and appropriation, or bring obliquely to mind the pattern of commerce, profit and exploitation in the manufacture of fashion items for western consumption.’ (Flags of the Forest).

Grid images below: Flags of the Forest installation process. Photo credits: 4,5,6,7,8,9,24,29 Barbara Beyer

Flags of the Forest. Photos (above x 2) by Russell Sach

Photo Barbara Beyer

Visitors’ silent walk to see Flags of the Forest before Artist Talks. Photo David Bird

Above: visitor with Flag

Left: photo by Jane Jobling

Flags of the Forest took almost a year to make, in between other work. Inspired by walks in woodlands, it was developed from an indoor piece to a large outdoor installation. The flags celebrate bio-diversity, hopeful of nature being more cared for, and thriving. The work includes tall heavy scrap metal and found wood components with fragile hand-stitched patchworks of semi-translucent textiles elements - some I’ve botanically dyed, eco-printed or embedded with found objects collected on walks. It’s a first for me - and a steep learning curve - to include a water feature as part of an installation. Labour-intensive processes included digging a ditch/pond/water feature and carrying many buckets of water uphill…  Have enjoyed seeing the work activated by wind, rain and sunshine.  It tinkles, reflects in the inky water, and casts strong shadows. Have loved chatting to visitors and their dogs. I couldn’t dream of a better view for this work - across the sea to St Michael’s Mount, a tidal island, place of pilgrimage and the inspiration for the show.

Above and Below is a response to the entanglements of matter, rhizomic systems and debris that make up the strata we walk on. Interconnected lines of life, in a process of becoming, growing, ‘frothing and tangling and fusing.. layering and layering and layering…..’ (Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life). ‘Fungal networks lace woodland soil… slow stories… making and remaking…. Vascular systems of forest wisdom.’’ (Robert Macfarlane, Underland).

Above and Below, reclaimed and found materials including metal, wood, insects, twine, tree bark, pods, fishing net, roots, grasses, bones, pondweed, nest, aluminium, sisal,, botanically dyed fabric, wax, 2023

Above and Below, Wander_Land. Photo Russell Sach

Images above: Above and Below install, Opening Evening, Artist Talk and exhibition overview. Photo credits: 1,3 Mark Richards; 4 Rob Marshall; 5,10,11 Barbara Beyer; 8 Jane Jobling; 9,20 Seamus Moran; 14,19 Russell Sach; 16 Doug Burton; 17 Jo Hague.

Thanks to:

Jason Nosworthy and Mike Belcher for helping me install; Seamus and Jo Moran for their hospitality all week during and post install; Jane Jobling and other exhibiting artists; Neil Armstrong & team at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens; Martin Holman for his help curating; Arts Council England for my DYCP award which enabled me to develop this work to an ambitious scale; Mark Devereux Projects for mentoring support this year.

If you haven’t yet, do visit!  And see @wanderland2023 for more..

My year of ACE DYCP has now come to an end, but I will be continuing in the same vein towards a more sustainable practice, taking risks, exploring and developing further.

I was delighted to see my work settled in its new home. Above and Below I (mixed media collage) looks fabulous framed up so beautifully, and in a perfect spot. I’ll now be focusing on new work for Somerset Open Studios (16 Sept - 1 Oct). In the meantime, if you’d like to purchase any of my works please visit my shop.

Above and Below 1, mixed media collage

Flags, Crowns, Costumes, Giants

Flags of the Forest in progress

I hope you’ve been enjoying the May bank holidays (with extra coronation one for those of us in UK). I spent it with friends in North Cornwall (see pics at end). Flags, Crowns, Costumes and Giants have been recurring themes lately…

I’m working on my Flags of the Forest series - eco-flag pieces inspired by woodlands.   Some have different qulities/themes and hoping they’ll speak to each other.  I’ve used labour-intensive methods such as hand-stitching, weaving, and hand-made eco dyes to celebrate biodiversity, hopeful of nature being more cared for, and thriving. Placed in the landscape near Tremenheere’s woodland, and reflected in a water feature, the flags become way markers. The concept was inspired by Ursula Le Guin’s book title ‘The Word for World is Forest’. Woods and forests provide vital ecosystems - crucial to our survival.

The work’s being developed for Wander_Land. Follow our weekly instagram @wanderland2023 artist takeovers by Royal Society of Sculptors members leading up to our exhibition at Tremenheere Sculpture Garden and Gallery, 1 July - 5 August, (PV 30 June 6-8pm). 

I’m involved in an ACE funded project to create a processional giant puppet ‘Sovereign Nature’ via Spoken World, for upcoming Somerset festivals in June/July.  ‘Built by a professional giant maker Jem Dick, Sovereign Nature’s costume will be created with textile artist Fiona Campbell, project director/storyteller Sharon Jacksties and community groups. ‘ I’m creating parts of the costume using recycled/found materials.  Currently working on the oak copse crown/headdress comprising handmade leaves, and eco-dyed fabric.  We are holding several community workshops.  These start in May - one at Create@#8, (8 Town Street, Shepton Mallet BA4 5BG) on Tuesday 23 May, 6-8pm, run by me and project leader/storyteller Sharon Jacksties.  This free community workshop is to help make a large recycled fabric river train.  The making process will include storytelling and sharing stories about Nature - reviving the age-old practice of telling/listening whilst making.  The more hand-stitchers the merrier, so do join us!  We’ll also be doing some drawings of Somerset's endangered creatures on fabric for the giant’s dress sleeves   Book: eventbrite

Listen to a BBC radio chat about the project (3:16-3:36)

Sovereign Nature Events: 10/6 Taunton Green Fair, Castle Green, Museum of Somerset, Taunton; 11/6 The Green Scythe Fair, Thorney Lakes; 15-16/7 Pitchfolk Festival, Sedgemoor. Plus various residential care homes..

I led a flower-crown workshop for Jack in the Green via The Old Stores Studio on May 1. High Wire Mystic Chris Bullzini was the master of ceremony, always a pleasure to witness. The cloak he wears was made last time by me and the community.

I also made a crown for my local village church (St. Bart’s) for the coronation, and installed the work with Gill Sakakini.

Yesterday I installed my piece House on Fire at Stone Lane Gardens for Stone Lane Sculpture Exhibition, part of the Ashburner Prize. It opens 1 June and runs throughout the summer. The theme is ‘Sense of Place’. Thanks to Jason Nosworthy for his help with the install!

House on Fire, reclaimed materials: found wood, wire, steel, twine, fabric, plastic..

Other news:

Honoured to have been invited to join the board as a Trustee at Somerset Art Works. I was a Rep ’13-’19.

A few sketches done on my mini break in North Cornwall. We did some gorgeous coastal walks around Rock, The Rumps, Padstow, and Daymer Bay.

Pics below include a heart-making workshop I ran for a Community Spirit giant - to be installed in Shepton Mallet this summer; prepping work for Flags of the Forest; and London exhibitions (Mike Nelson at Hayward & Souls Grown Deep.. at RA)