Past Exhibitions .
Exhibitions 2004
.
TRICIA GILLMAN : Paintingsand
RUTH MOILLIET : Sculpture
27 September - 20 November 2004
Tricia Gillman_s painting is primarily abstract, but it is clear that growth
and organic forms are very important sources. Her paintings create
_...an exuberant exoticism, a world ... of extraordinary encounters between mysterious half disclosed forms and lush vegetative eruptions, ... of allusive imagery in free-fall, a world where vibrant colour suggested an intensity of light, ... where peripheral flashes of tiger and zebra-like markings seemed not out of context._
Tricia Gillman has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including the Jill George Gallery, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Gardner Centre, Brighton; John Moores, Liverpool; and British Council shows in Vienna, South Africa and the Far East. Her works are in various public and private collections. She has taught for many years at Central and St Martins Schools and the Royal College of Art.
.
Ruth Moilliet makes both metal sculptures based on botanical forms,
including seed heads eg dandelion and allium, and sculptural formations of flower parts pressed between multiple sheets of glass. Her work explores the strength of nature and its sustainability. She has established a reputation for sculpting in glass and metal, and using these materials to reflect the delicacy of plants and their ability to survive.
Ruth Moilliet graduated from Manchester in 2000 and has already had many exhibitions and commissions, including the Crafts Council, the Botanic Garden of Wales, Westonbirt Festival of Gardens, and the Foment de les Arts Decoratives in Barcelona. She received Best Decorative Accessory Award at the Design and Decoration Awards 2004.
.
.
.
.
SOPHIE RYDER
Both these artists have been inspired by growth and botanical forms. 
(from catalogue introduction by Keith Patrick - Jill George Gallery 1999)
19 June to 28 August
She has exhibited widely in the UK, Canada (Vancouver, Montreal),
the USA (Chicago, New York), Eire, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Ryder makes wire and bronze sculptures, installations,
wire drawings, collages
and prints.
From tiny jewel-like creatures to the monumental sculpture
for which she is best known, Sophie Ryder creates a world
in which a minotaur may dance with a flower,
and rabbits inhabit a temple. Typically, Ryder_s sculptures are
of human torsos with animal heads and, sometimes, animal limbs.
The minotaur, half-man, half-bull, and her own creation, the lady-hare,
are favourite subjects.
_I sculpt characters and beings - the dogs, the hares, the minotaurs -
are all characters beyond animal form._
She has always enjoyed portraying the human body, she says,
but once you give the work a human head, it takes on a specific personality.
_I am not interested in representing animals as such - it is more about using them
to represent human emotions._ Putting an animal head on a human body, she thinks,
allows you to explore emotions without reducing themes to the individual.
_The onlooker sees what the piece is about,
rather than just what the person being portrayed is like._
Temple to the 200 Rabbits and Lady Hares in a Forest,
plus maquettes, drawings and prints.
This exhibition extends into Lancaster city centre
with a bronze sculpture placed next to the fountain in Market Square.
The piece, entitled Conversation, represents a life-size horse with two animal riders.
.
.
.
DOGSPACE
An exhibition of amazing inflatable dogs
specially created for the Storey Gallery
by
Space Cadets
5 April - 29 May 2004
The Storey Gallery has commissioned Space Cadets to create a crowd of inflatable white dogs to fill the gallery space.
Each dog has its own small fan connected to a timer
and so slowly inflates and deflates.
Spacecadets is a small arts organisation based in Manchester,
run by artists Lisa Gort and Jamima Latimer.
They specialise in creating inflatable sculptures
for art galleries, festivals, carnivals and open-air events.
Spacecadets work with basic inflatable forms and shapes
to create work that is simple, beautiful and fun.
All of their work, from giant 60ft cones to small dogs,
is designed to be animated in some way.
Movement creates the illusion that the shapes are actually alive
and gives each one its own unique personality.
Dogspace was created specifically for the Storey Gallery.
In the second gallery is a Spacehopper.
Jamima Latimer and Lisa Gort
The commission of DOGSPACE has been enabled by financial support from
are both graduates of Manchester Metropolitan University.
Over the past few years Spacecadets have undertaken
a wide variety
of commissions, performances and workshops.
These have included :
Liverpool Biennial - Airbath
Sydney and Melbourne, Australia - installation for Make It exhibition - Manchester Trade Missionary
The Lowry Gallery - interactive installation
Manchester Museum of Science & Industry - interactive sculpture
Harris Museum & Art Gallery - Artist in Residence
Chorley Borough Council - Year of the Artist Residency
The work of Space Cadets can also be seen at
www.spacecadets.com
Arts Council England: North West.
BY STELLA VINE
1 - 29 May 2004
Snow White in the Woods 2003
The work of Stella Vine has received an enormous amount of media coverageover the past couple of months. Articles appeared in most of the British national papers,
and also in the press worldwide, from Los Angeles to China.
This interest was generated by Charles Saatchi, who had bought
two of her paintings in February and included them in the exhibition,
_New Blood, New Artists, New Acquisitions_,
at his gallery in what used to be London_s County Hall.
As a result, Vine has been catapulted from total obscurity
to being the art world's latest sensation.
The painting which attracted most attention, and has been widely reproduced,
is a crude portrait of Princess Diana,
bearing the graffitied words, _Hi Paul can you come over, I'm really frightened _.
It was inspired by a letter to the former royal butler Paul Burrell,
and is reputed to have been painted in 15 minutes.
Stella Vine is a young painter based in London,
who had sold few paintings before Saatchi_s purchase.
She had attended part-time painting classes at Hampstead School of Art
and is described as having been a stripper.
She was married to Charles Thomson, one of the leaders of the Stuckists,
a group of artists led by Tracey Emin_s ex-partner, Billy Childish.
Her style and technique of painting has apparently
been greatly influenced by Thomson and Childish.
She describes her painting as deliberately bad,
"I can paint in a much more realistic, photographic style,
but I find it more interesting to make it less perfect," she said.
"I like what I call 'bad painting'" (quoted in the Daily Telegraph).
The name of the Stuckists apparently derives from Emin_s comment,
made during a row with Childish, that his painting was _stuck, stuck, stuck._
The Stuckists believe that only strongly emotional paintings can be real art.
They despise what they consider to be
both Saatchi's and Tate Gallery director
Nicholas Serota's "stranglehold" on the contemporary art market,
and think that most of the art promoted by these two is
"lost in a cul-de-sac of idiocy._
The Storey Gallery has been loaned two of Stella Vine_s paintings
by a local collector who prefers to remain anonymous.
The paintings are: Snow White in the Forest and The Boys (William and Harry).
The collector bought them at about the same time as Saatchi,
who apparently is also interested in buying the Snow White painting.
The Boys (William and Harry)
This is the third time in the past nine months that
the Storey Gallery has paralleled Saatchi_s interests.
Last summer he was considering buying a piece in the Storey_s exhibition
by Manchester painter David Hancock.
In September the Storey held an exhibition by Simon Callery,
a London-based artist who had the distinction of having
a whole exhibition of his work bought by Saatchi before it opened,
and whose painting was included in the infamous Sensation show.
These two paintings by Stella Vine will be shown alongside
the very successful exhibition by Spacecadets
which continues until May 29.
Dogspace is a crowd of white inflatable dogs suspended in the gallery
which regularly inflate and deflate
_ a cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
.
.
NIK INGHAM & PHIL MORSMAN : Paintings24 January - 20 March 2004
Nik Ingham and Phil Morsman are both abstract painters,
one based in Lancaster and one in north Cumbria. Nik Ingham works at Luneside Studios in Lancaster and is one of the most respected artists in the area. He studied at Lancaster College of Art when it was in the Storey Institute. His work has been shown and purchased widely throughout the North West.
Most of Ingham_s work has some connection with his immediate urban locality and the way change occurs within it. These interests are reflected in his application and choice of materials which are mostly household and industrial paints and fillers.
Nik Ingham : Spray No.1 (detail) 2003 Cellulose paint & collage on paper
Phil Morsman lives and paints in an old church in Appleby. His work has been exhibited throughout the UK and is included in many public, private and corporate collections both here and abroad.
Morsman says, _(My paintings) are mainly about mood and emotion, though they frequently allude to landscape, geology, sex, archaeology, jazz, the weather, dreams, memories, etc..._
His work has been described as _vibrantly sensuous_.
Phil Morsman : Seeking Venus (desert) 2001 Acrylic on canvas 60x72ins
..
.
Exhibitions 2003
.
Segsbury ProjectSimon Callery
6 September - 15 November 2003
Segsbury Project included sculpture and photographs made as a result of Simon Callery_s direct experience of archaeological excavations of a Bronze Age ditch and an Iron Age hill fort on The Ridgeway in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire.
This major exhibition was displayed at only two venues in the UK, Dover Castle and the Storey Gallery. Simon Callery is based in London. His paintings are in the Saatchi Collection and the Tate Collection. The work exhibited at Storey Gallery operates at the point where the disciplines of art and archaeology meet. It throws as much light on the concerns of contemporary art, photography and archaeology as it does on the Segsbury settlement of 2000 years ago.
Segsbury Project began in 1996 with the photographic documentation of an archaeological site at Segsbury Camp, an Iron Age hill fort on the Ridgeway near Wantage. Over a period of 48 hours, Callery, in association with photographer Andrew Watson, photographed a 40 x 20 metre excavation trench at Segsbury in 1.5 metre square sections. The resulting photographic work, called The Segsbury Project, documents the entire 800 square metre site at a scale of 2:1 and takes the form of an archive contained in seven specially constructed plan chests. This overview could be examined in sections - drawer by drawer - or pieced together as a whole.
Trench 10, the largest work in the exhibition, was made during the summer of 2000. Plaster was poured directly onto the surface of a 20 x 2 metre excavation of a Bronze Age ditch at Alfred's Castle near Swindon. Rather than simply taking the negative form of this excavation the plaster captured and held the jagged, powdery chalk surface of the actual trench. This monumental piece dominated the main gallery space.
Segsbury Project was completed in Callery_s studio where he produced large-scale austere paintings made specifically for the show. Two of these large paintings are shown in an additional room which was made available especially for this exhibition. A collection of ancillary material documenting the plans and research of the excavation was included in the exhibition.
Segbury Project was a collaboration between The Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, English Heritage and The Laboratory at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, presented in association with the Storey Gallery.
.
.
.
DAVID HANCOCK : The Beautiful People
David Hancock's paintings are portraits of young people in their own personal spaces.
The sitters are surrounded by their possessions and symbols of their culture, in a space to which only a select few would normally have access.
20 June - 16 August 2003
The canvases are split into sections to give a panoramic view of the space represented. These sections are hung across or around corners of the gallery creating a three-dimensional environment so that the viewer is able to step inside the space of the painting. Some works are made in collaboration with the young artists who are portrayed. Hancock incorporates the spontaneity of their artwork within the structure of the portrait.
.
.
.
ALBERT IRVIN : PAINTINGS AND PRINTS
20 January - 22 March 2003
