Highlights: 12 - 16 August, 2024

New Art Highlights of the week includes: Kayleigh Peters, Liv Penrose Punnett, Tom Ireland and Barbara Beyer

Aušrinė, Baltic Pagan Deity of Medicine, Health and Beauty, 2023

Kayleigh Peters

Aušrinė, Baltic Pagan Deity of Medicine, Health and Beauty is from a body of work; 'The Defective Goddesses'. Which are series of vessels that establishes a profound connection to the earth and life itself, embodying simplicity through reflective autobiographical creation. These vessels serve as a form of quiet activism, initiating dialogue about the often taboo topic of hidden illnesses. Stemming from my own struggles with hidden illnesses, this body of work advocates for increased visibility and enhanced medical research, especially when looking at women's bodies. Which intertwines with research into health over time, incorporating narratives from historical myths and legends of deities and goddesses by reflecting on how societal perceptions of secrecy have been constructed. Prompting reflection on who holds the power to affect change. In an era marked by a chronically underfunded healthcare system that is plagued with gender biases, this work poses fundamental questions about the origin of these disparities and how to achieve health care equality and equity.

A Strange Kind of Knowing Exhibition, 2021 - 2022

Liv Penrose Punnett

A Strange Kind of Knowing was a touring exhibition of new commissions and recent works exploring the land, seasonal cycles, natural phenomena, intuition and nuance. Artists Verity Birt, Holly Bynoe, Kristina Chan, Fourthland, Susan Hiller, Katja Hock, Coral Kindred-Boothby, Penny McCarthy, Kate McMillan, Aimée Parrott, Chantal Powell, Tai Shani and Eleanor May Watson presented works on paper, paintings, sculpture, video and installations that drew on alternative, marginalised and embodied ideas of knowledge intrinsically connected to the natural world. The exhibition opened at Arusha Gallery in December 2021 and then toured to Haarlem Gallery in 2022.

SURFACE PICTURE / WHITE SANDS, 2019 - 2024

Tom Ireland

PLYWOOD
STUDIO VIEW. PART OF ONGOING SERIES

SURFACE PICTURE / WHITE SANDS is a series of pictures that bring together a number of key interests into a single abstract image. The pictures reference landscape painting, satellite technologies, and 20th century art history.

The pictures are based on satellite images of the White Sands Missile Range, a testing facility in the New Mexico desert. These source images, seen from above, record a century of mark making on the landscape. In these works, the uniform surface of the plywood is interrupted through mechanical processes, echoing the mark of the pencil, brush or rocket.

Wiela II, 2023 - 2024

Barbara Beyer

Art + Christianity, in collaboration with Friends of Friendless Churches, are hosting a ground-breaking exhibition, offering an art trail and pilgrimage to a number of ancient rural churches near the Black Mountains in South Wales. This area in the Brecon Beacons /Bannau Brycheiniog is famous for its dramatic series of peaks and stunning summit views. Nestled within nearby valleys are many hidden churches which hold outstanding visual culture including sgraffito wall paintings, medieval screens and other fine and ancient ecclesiastical features. Six of these are remarkable buildings in the care of Friends of Friendless Churches and, together with Dore Abbey, each will host a single installation or artwork, sympathetically and sensitively presented as a coherent and meaningful experience

Maritime vessels are also used as a metaphor for the church, the word ‘nave’ deriving from the Latin – navis – for ship. In this sense, the whole church is called to be a vessel of God's love and grace, and to carry these gifts into the world. Barbara Beyer translates these ideas through her boat forms. Wiela, created from adobe clay, recycled wood and roof slates, are seemingly sturdy vessels with bare prominent cracks suggesting that they are also vulnerable to the elements despite the protective shelter of the slate roof tiles which offer sanctuary. The vessels are moored in the quiet churchyard of St Cadoc, Llangattock Vibon Avel. Jacquiline Creswell.