Ongoing

Design for Flags of the Forest - ongoing work

As one thing ends, another begins… and so we go on.

Thanks to all who visited my recent solo exhibition, supported, and bought work! :-) I had such a special time meeting new visitors and friends, catching up, talking art and all things related. See more about my residency and solo in my previous blog posts.

A few events on the horizon:

I’m involved in the Quantock Poetry Trail, led by Ralph Hoyte, (worked with me in step in stone). We're showing our work in Measureless at Studio 10, East Quay, Watchet, a film comprising spoken word and visual art. My Flags of the Forest was partly inspired by walks with the group, and some of my images and words will feature. It runs 1-23 April. Readings eve: 22 April, 7-9pm.

Join me for 2 Heart-making sculpture workshops this Thursday 6 April, and 4 May, at the Art Bank, Shepton Mallet, 10.30am-12.30pm. Help me create the heart of the Community Spirit living sculpture! We’ll be using found and recycled materials to make the giant’s heart, to be installed in Shepton this summer. No need to book.. Just turn up!

I’m taking part in a Pecha Kucha at Shatwell Farm, Bruton, Somerset on Friday 14 April, 6.30pm. Creatives speak about their practices in quick succession ‘to foster new connections... an opportunity to exchange ideas with one another’. Join us if you can! Book your place here

My work (design above) has been selected for Stone Lane Gardens Sculpture Exhibition 2023, and Ashburner Prize; opening 1 June, it runs throughout the summer. The spectacular 5 acre woodland is on the edge of Dartmoor National Park.

Thrilled to be taking part in Wander_Land this summer, with Royal Society of Sculptors SW group members at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens & Gallery, Cornwall. We’ll be showing new work about landscape and wandering. Runs 1 July-5 Aug. PV 30 June, 6-8pm. I’m developing Flags of the Forest into an outdoor series for Wander_Land. Sculptural lines and layered fields of colour will be activated by the elements: solid vertical hoists contrasting soft hangings, hand-stitched patchworks of semi-translucent materials that will hang at different heights. This film shows my process so far ↓.

Above and Below, my second (indoor) piece to be shown at Wander_Land

Behind the scenes I’ve been working with the steering group, my focus being PR and our instagram feed. Do follow @wanderland2023 for more..

Thanks to Mark Devereux (MDP) for his sensitive mentoring so far as part of my DYCP award.

For the past year I’ve been art tutoring young people at home. I was delighted that 2 had 6 of their artworks selected for the Black Swan Young Arts Open Exhibition, and 1 won a prize in his age category.

If you’re interested in a 1-to-1 or group workshop let me know!

Other events and links:

I was so glad I got to London last week to catch Cecilia Vicuna’s Brain Forest Quipu and Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Every Tangle of Thread and Rope at the Tate. Both inspired by forests. The latter particularly inspiring: highly dramatic environments of enormous bulky forms, suspended so that ropes spill across the floor, shadows, deep rich earthy tones.. Also saw Maria Bartuszova’s delicate plaster sculptures, wandered around the Object/Materials collection, and visited V & A to see Africa Fashion - a brilliant show!

Attended a tour of The New Bend, Hauser & Wirth Somerset by curator Legacy Russell last weekend, very eloquent.

So sad to to learn of Phyllida Barlow’s death last month. A huge loss to the art world. She was a great inspiration.

A-N report ‘Structurally F-cked ’on the ‘systematically flawed art world… the only people not paid were the artists, the content providers….small fee.. huge workload… the fee per hour worked out as pennies..’

Aerial African Studies by Edward Burtynsky

Above and Below, exhibition invite, workshops

Really enjoying my residency in the empty shop in Shepton Mallet - Create@#8. It’s been liberating to spread out in a huge space, view my work as a collection, and get absorbed in making. I’m using the residency to develop work as part of my Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice Award’. Ongoing work will be shown in a solo exhibition 11-19 March. Come to the Opening Event on Sat 11 March, 2-4pm! There’ll be a soundscape in response to works by Ushara Dilrukshan. Open Mon-Sat 11am-4pm.

I’m making a sculpture Above and Below - a response to the entanglements of matter, rhizomic systems and debris that make up the strata we walk on.  All are continuously transforming in a process of becoming, ‘..frothing and tangling and fusing.. layering and layering and layering… millions of fungal skeins suspended.. a gossamer web at least as intricate as the cables.. that hang beneath our cities..,’ (Merlin Sheldrake).

Linear uprights extrude through layered substrates - a mass of interwoven lines. It’s made from reclaimed/discarded materials and objects sourced from different places, each with a story, including steel, copper, plant fibres/roots/debris, twine, wire, wool, rope, feathers, rusted paper.. Life above and below; ‘as above, so below..’ I’ve since learnt Freud took this line ‘Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo’ to describe the currents of psychological underland that rush beneath our sunlit uplands of conscious mind, here and there surging up…

The work will be exhibited at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens this summer together with my outdoor Flag pieces. I’ll be showing alongside 30 Royal Society of Sculptors - see here for more about our Wander_Land exhibition.

I’ve been spending many hours hammering and ‘stitching’ bottle tops together with fine copper wire. They’re being added in blocks are to a handwoven backing I previously made for another project (Chelsea Flower Show) - now being reused and transformed for my Flags of the Forest. Layers of translucent netting and fabric will be added. The original design references endangered species across the globe. There will eventually be several eco flags that stand together. The flags will be made from a range of found and reclaimed materials stitched together, representing bio-diversity, making do, hopeful of nature being more cared for, and thriving. The work was inspired by walks in woodlands and a phrase ‘the word for world is forest’ (Ursula Le Guin). Woods and forests provide vital ecosystems.

My giant snowdrop sculptures (made from discarded materials including plastic, wire and tent fabric) were installed in Shepton Mallet for the Snowdrop Festival until 20 February. It was lovely to see people engaging with them as we put them up outside the Baptist Church. One of Shepton Mallet’s annual highlights, the festival events had a massive attendance through the week.

Next week I’ll be running a free one-day art and creative writing workshop with Polly Hall. Join us to create a suspended artwork for Shepton Mallet library window featuring Market Cross. We’ll delve into the history of this iconic landmark, create written responses and drawing on textiles with botanical dyes. Supported by Shepton Mallet Town Council, part of their Winter Series. Friday 3 March, 10am-4pm. Shepton Mallet Library, 2 Market Place BA4 5AZ. Book: eventbrite

I’ll also be running an Eco Sculpture Workshop on Saturday, 18 March, 2-4pm. Create@#8, Shepton Mallet BA4 5BG. Book: eventbrite

Great to be showing Entangled VI in Darkness to Hope exhibition, Atkinson Gallery, 27 Feb - 30 March.

It’s your last chance to take advantage of my February Love Art shop discount! I’m offering 15% off all orders over £10 until the end of this month when my prices go up!  Quote this code at checkout: LOVEARTFEBSALE

Hope to see you at the Opening Event!

Flags of the Forest, Residency, Exhibitions, Workshops

Flags of the Forest (in progress). Photo by Russell Sach

Happy New Year (I think I can still say that as it’s still January, just)!

Knuckling down to studio work has been a priority this past month. I’m developing new work as part of my Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ Award. The award supports a year’s development, including my recent research trip to Kenya (see film), and mentoring with Mark Devereux Projects - which helps motivate me. I’m working on several pieces, leading to upcoming shows, including a residency/solo exhibition in a large empty space, Create@#8, Shepton Mallet, and Wander_Land at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens and Gallery, with Royal Society of Sculptors this summer.

Inspired by walks in woodlands, I’m creating a series of Flags of the Forest. The flags celebrate bio-diversity, hopeful of nature being more cared for, and thriving.  These involve a combination of sculptural lines and fields of colour in space - hand-stitched patchworks of semi-translucent fabric and plastic remnants.  Some I’ve botanically dyed, eco-printed or embedded with found objects collected on walks.

I’m really grateful to photographer Russells Sach for visiting me last week for a photoshoot in my studio. It was a great opportunity to test out how the separate elements of my Flag pieces work together (and have a tidy up!).

Flags of the Forest (in progress). Photos by Russell Sach

Woods and forests provide vital ecosystems - crucial to our survival. Trees and their underground connections with mycelia fascinate me. Trees inspire awe, such slow-moving tolerant beings with ancient energies. My labour-intensive process is key to the work. Care and repair, making do, reusing, avoiding wastefulness. The binding, weaving and hand-stitching is cathartic, a form of suturing - healing through making.

If you have any green fabric/old clothing you’d like to get rid of, please let me know. I can collect if in the Somerset area.

Collage for Above and Below - a sculpture I’m developing

Botanical-prints on khadi paper, created after watching online demo with Suzanne Ledesma-Sikkerbøl

I plan to create a dyers garden. This will take time, so while I set up, I’m on the look out for certain leaves and flowerheads (unwanted) for eco-printing eg: eucalyptus leaves, african daisies, chocolate cosmos, dahlias, coreopsis, madder root… If you’re able to save me any of these, please get in touch!

During my residency at Create@#8, 20 Feb-10 March. the space will be open to visitors on Fridays and other days by appointment.  From 11-19 March, ongoing work will be showcased in a solo exhibition (Mon-Sat 11am-4pm, 8 Town Street, Shepton Mallet BA4 5BG). The Opening Event is Saturday 11 March, 2-4pm - save the date, I’d love you to come!  There will be a compositional soundscape in response to works by Ushara Dilrukshan. I plan to show a range of suspended, wall-mounted and freestanding works in the empty shop space, including a few pieces from my Life in the Undergrowth project. All welcome! 

I have some workshops you might be interested in (pics below of one I ran last weekend):

Join me in creating small snowdrop-inspired sculptures as part of Shepton Mallet's Snowdrop Festival on Friday, 17 Feb, 2-4pm, at The Art Bank Cafe, 13 High Street, Shepton Mallet BA4 5AA. Supported by Snowdrop Festival. Tickets £5. Book: eventbrite.

Shepton Reflections: a FREE one-day art and creative writing workshop with me and Polly Hall, Fri 3 March, 10am-4pm at Shepton Mallet Library. Using written word, poetry, botanical dyes and textiles we’ll make a suspended artwork featuring the Market Cross.  Supported by Shepton Mallet Town Council. Book: eventbrite.

Linked to my exhibition at Create@#8, I’ll be running an Eco Sculpture Workshop on Sat, 18 March, 2-4pm. Tickets: £18. Book: eventbrite.

Very happy my piece Entangled VI was selected for an exhibition Darkness to Hope at Atkinson Gallery, Somerset, opening 27 Feb. For more details please visit current and forthcoming events.

Looking forward to Spring!

Material experiments, exhibitions and open studios

Hello to Winter and the festive season!

I am now in my second (and final) year of my MA Fine Art course at Bath Spa Uni.  It has been a great opportunity to reflect on previous work, find new ways of working and research.  I am still expanding and refining ideas, while continuing the thread of using reclaimed materials. This aspect relates partly to the issue of waste and energy – utilising and recycling.  It belongs to a wider subject of our relationship with matter, nature, and ourselves.  In the series ‘Wonders of Life’ Brian Cox explains that energy is eternal, transforming from one thing to another. There is a connection between everything that has ever lived, and an impact, as in the Chaos theory, or Butterfly Effect.  I see Vitalism as energy in all things, although in Science it is the vital force peculiar to only living organisms.

A mass of frass (insect excretions) appeared around tiny entry points in a piece of found wood (above) in which I had inserted glass tendrils as growths. The frass resemble decaying matter on a holdfast I studied. I find them intriguing, referencing life’s recycling, organic matter as bodily forms. These phenomena have been starting points to further investigations. They led to microscopic studies of frass. Microscopic hidden structures vital to our being reflecting the magnitude of life. These images could easily be rock formations – even meteors.

I have since experimented with annealing and beating copper over molds I carved in wood, based on frass forms. My copper project – exploring the materiality of copper and what happens to it under different conditions – included an experiment with copper electrolysis. The alchemic process is fascinating, I have learnt a little more chemistry and made copper hydroxide as a pigment. Two scrap pieces of copper were connected to a low voltage battery charger, with opposite charges. The electricity splits the ions in salty water. A complex chemical process ensues, involving copper hydroxide, chlorine and hydrogen bubbles. The effects of disintegration and patination are wonderful. The harnessing of elemental energy could become an artwork.

I recently visited the exhibition ‘Italian Influences, British Responses’ at Estorick, London. It was interesting to see current artworks alongside the anti-consumerist 60’s group Arte Povera, who broke with tradition believing art should be inclusive.  In their resolution to fuse life and art, nature and culture, they used everyday materials, often incongruous juxtapositions of mundane manufactured with organic. Their work was about energy and the elements. The exhibition included a piece by Mona Hatoum.  She uses everyday objects arranged to signify displacement and confinement.  In her work domesticity becomes ‘menacing’ (Van Assche).  In a Youtube film she explains her intuitive response to materials. She incorporates body parts eg nails, skin, hair, creating modest hair balls, or hair grids. Through these bodily excretions she transforms materials and meaning.

I also saw Damian Ortega at White Cube Gallery and watched him online. He playfully takes apart and re-assembles components, dealing with fragmentation of objects, time, materiality.  It is a philosophical discourse involving material and message.   I like his encyclopaedic geodes made from old maps, which he layers as shells, suggesting geological time, and his visual essays, which question truth, mass media’s effect on our perceptions and judgements. ‘Learning Scheme’ indexes small thumbnail clay pieces according to their similarities. Some forms are similar in different groups/lines. Like convergent evolution, they seem to morph, some are organic, others more mechanical.  Since then I have been working in clay a little.

Last week we opened our MA studios to the public.  I created an installation for it inspired by the organic forms I have been studying, using found and reclaimed materials, some transformed by me. It was a great gathering and the deadline helped me focus on one thing for a while.

On a more commercial note, to make ends meet, I have just updated my Etsy page: www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FionaCampbellArt. Do have a look – there are some possible gifts for Christmas!

Have a lovely one!

Exhibitions - Judy Pfaff, Frieze and more

In September I attended Judy Pfaff’s talk and the launch of her new site-specific installation ‘Roots Up’ at Messums, Wiltshire.  Having previously researched her online as an artist of great interest to me, it was a real thrill to see her work in reality.  Pfaff sees her installations as ‘painting in 3d’.  ‘Roots Up’ fills the length and height of the huge tithe barn.  On entering, I was taken aback by the immensity of two extraordinary entwined tree root balls, which have naturally melded together clasping man-made stone blocks between their roots.  Monumental in scale, nature’s power is unequivocal.  Steel rods wiggle and writhe – their man-altered forms communing with the architecture and nature. Colourful concentric rings are encircled by 12 hovering vessels, a fantastical mix of green to pink sinuous melted plastic and expanded foam spilling out.  I was reminded of sundials, crop circles, the solar system and celtic patterns. The recognisable influence of Salisbury Cathedral is represented in a fluted architectural column reaching to the ceiling.  Pfaff’s work oozes, spews and flows with energy and vitality, which I love.

Earlier this month I visited Frieze London.  I was overwhelmed by the scale of it; seemingly endless compartmentalised spaces filled with art and hoards of people, which made me quite dizzy by the end!  Gallery Pillar Corrias created an incredible theatrical show of Mary Reid Kelley and Patrick Kelley’s work. The floor is integrated into the work as a stage set.  Floor, wall-mounted lightbox portaits and sculptural installations are all treated with the same black and white stylisation of a fictional narrative based on American World War II sailors' lives on a submarine.  I found it compelling.

Lee Bul’s ‘Untitled (Mekamelencolia – Velvet #3 DDRG29AC) incorporates human hair, paint, dried flowers and silk velvet.  Strands of hair furrow through the velvet pile as a drawing, particles of dried flowers embedded in the surface.  I’ve noticed human hair featured in several artworks lately.  There are so many everyday materials under our noses which we can utilise.  I like the unexpected mix.  I am experimenting with grass juice, feathers and ground coal, though hair may be added to the list!

Do Ho Suh’s ‘Main Entrance, 388 Benefit Street, Providence, RI 02903, USA’ is a beautiful, ethereal walk-through sculpture about memory of place.  Made from blue polyester fabric over thin steel pipes, it is immaculately crafted, simple and elegant.  Sarah Sze’s intricate maquette is a miniature version of her planetary installation ‘Triple Point (Planetarium)’.  ‘Her work challenges the static nature of sculpture.  She draws from Modernist traditions of the found object, dismantling their authority with dynamic constellations of materials that are charged with flux, transformation and fragility’ (Victoria Miro).

I've compiled a slideshow of the stages of my interim MA Show installation ‘Matter in Flux’ (which explored connections between line, growth and energy inspired by webs - see ‘Spider Web Safari’ - and other micro phenomena).  A short film taken by Nick Weaver also gives a flavour of the work.  I'm now working on research for my 4th module.

‘Anthill I’ is now happily installed in its new home, purchased at ‘Form and Fascination’, The Courts Garden, where I showed alongside Ian Turnock.  It was a joy to exhibit in such a National Trust gem.

When it came to taking down ‘Cirri’ from ‘Summer Sculptures’ at Glastonbury Abbey, I was delighted to find a lady absorbed in drawing the pieces. Julia from Edinburgh had been with my work two days in a row, finding them a great source of inspiration.

As part of our collaborative exhibition ‘Ephemeral and Eternal’ during Somerset Art Weeks Festival ’17 at Black Swan Arts, Angela Morley and I ran some workshops.  Mine involved participants ranging in age from 3 to adult making pieces using found and reclaimed materials.

1173 visitors came to see our exhibition, and we received some wonderful feedback. If you missed it, our collaborative piece 'Life Form' is still mounted on the Round Tower wall. There were 4 exhibitions at Black Swan Arts, including the beautiful and incredibly moving ‘Hinterland’ show by Gladys Paulus, so it was buzzing.   My ‘Cocoon’, exhibited during SAW Festival at Clayhill Arts, Bridgwater, is still on show to those who visit the centre by appointment.

I managed to visit a few other SAW venues.  I was particularly inspired by SAW's Muse project (artist responses to South West museum collections).  At Wells Museum Sean Harris' revealing, clever animation machines respond to the collection of ancient bones found in local caves including the Hyena Den.  Dorcas Casey's elevated crocodile at Bruton Museum is an amusing take on the collection's animal shaped jelly moulds. ‘Gather-ing', Somerset Rural Life Museum and Cotley Barn made use of the history and architecture of tithe barns.  They are such evocative spaces.

I am delighted that my Log Cast has been selected for the Black Swan Open, Frome, starting next week.

Time to move forwards with new ideas for my final MA year!