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Tony Humbleyard

Unst Shetland Isles
I am a sculptor and post consumer artist, working with the found object and the possibilities of direct experience.

 

Poetic statements & Sculptural forms

My work engages with site and collaboration. exploring social, psychological and physical space. Unearthing  the 'UseHistories' of place and how they inform the urgencies of now and our responses.. 

Exploring what it means to live an embedded relationship to place.I  have lived and worked on Unst since 2005 engaged in a process of Deep Listening and a sustainable Social Art practice. I mostly work within walking, cycling distance of the Shorestation, inviting others into this ecology to collaborate through ongoing projects and residencies.

i use random journeys, direct experience and the gathering of found objects. Constructing sculptures, interventions and poetic statements. Seeking out the patterns and continuities, the connections between our internal and external geographies. Exploring the perceptual landscapes that frame our actions in the world. As experience becomes increasingly commodified, my work is a reclamation of being present in any given place. Using space itself  as an element that conjures form and narrative, a way of testing this present moment and our relationship to it.

‘Rock, fences, cloud and houses/ marks in a landscape/ looking for the continuities/ an alchemical gathering of found objects and direct experience/the space between thoughts/ liminal places/ dissident voices carried in the wind/ new ecologies ebb and flow/ a quiet wisdom carried in the cadence of a stream…’

Abandoning guidebooks/maps/signs in favour of wandering/direct experiences.Exploring the visceral territory of our lived experience.The ‘found object’ offers an aesthetic of things imperfect and impermanent, a simplicity of form. Marked by time, eroded by the elements, artefacts of our past and present. In engaging with the past I don’t seek to romanticize it, but to see it as waymarker to possible futures. Often my final sculptures arise from the relationship between different objects/materials, an intuitive process unfolding over many months and many journeys. 

Living and working in a geographically remote community (Unst Shetland Islands) I am interested in the possibilities of collaboration as a working process. For me it enables a deeper exploration of the work itself and the  possibilities that arise when other, hands, eyes, perceptions and skills are involved. I am especially interested in working across disciplines.

'At the edge we are caught in liminal space, the tension between what has gone before and what is to be..'

                                Elisabeth McCormack

 

 

 

Tony Humbleyard CVExhibitions etc.

2023 – Opening – Published by Dark Mountain Project.

2023 Scottish Landscape Awards - Exhibition

2022  Social Crofting Research  VACMA Bursary

2021 Invisible Dances Performance/sculpture Shetland

2021 Not the time to be Silent  Spoken word/ video installation performance Limerick Ireland

2020 VACMA award for 'Usehistories' Project.

2019- Social@rthub Residency with Curator Rachel Grant https://www.fertileground.info

2019 - Social@rthub promoting Elisabeth Schillings 'Felt' https://www.facebook.com/1707893462629197/videos/361360041244217/

2018 - Fierce Urgency of Now - with National Theatre of Scotland Aberdeen

2018 - 'Walking the spaces' - Sumburghead Residency

2017 'Walking the Spaces'  collaboration with dancer Kathryn Spence

2017  Openspace Residency  with Elisabeth Schilling Sixfold

2016 Bone & Shadow with dancer/choreographer Jack Webb Bonhoga Shetland

2015   Drift  installation with Vision Mechanics - Shetland

2014   Experience Bronze - Milton Gallery Banchory 

2013   Bare  Exhibition  - Staircase Gallery Lomond

2013   All Talk  - NEA Gallery Edinburgh

2013   Pathways of Desire -  Coast Festival Banff

2013   Natural Selection  -  Moray Arts Centre

2010   Sculpture exhibition  - Pittenween Festival

2009   SSW Residency  - Lumsden

Awards 2017

Openspace Residencies - funded by Creative Scotland

Visual Arts Development Award - Shetland Arts

 

Sculptor/Installation artist/socialarthub facilitator

 

2019 Establishment of Social@rtHub Project

 2017 Openspace residency programme at the Shorestation.

2014    Stone Carving course,Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

2007/9  Fine Art BA(hons)- Moray (UHI)

2005  Fine Art (HND) - Calderdale College

2004  Art Therapy training - Leeds Met

2003  Art & Conflict Training - Marian Liebmen

2002  Certificate in Education - Leeds

2000 NCBI Prejudice Reduction Trainers Course.

 

 

 

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Curated Selection: Ritual Objects

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