Today I visited Parndon Mill, in its delightful riverside setting, which provides workspace for artists, craftspeople, designers and architects. The Gallery at Pardon Mill, which is open five days a week, has become a focus for the artists who have studios there, and for those who work further afield.
The Gallery presents a series of exhibitions each lasting about six weeks which display a wide variety of paintings, original prints, sculpture and skilled craftwork, including an annual exhibition of works of art in glass by some of the best artists in this popular medium. In Summer the exhibition space can extend onto the "island" outside. Sculpture is even sited in the river! At all times there is a selection of original prints, paintings and crafts available for sale at The Gallery, and a wide variety of artworks can be viewed within a visual image data-base.
Climate Changes is the current exhibition (from 7th April until 15th May); a show of works which reflect humanity's effect on the world and its climate. Especially featured in this exhibition are paintings by Ian Welsh who uses multi-layered lacquers to evoke the melting ice of glaciers and the sea. Welsh has always been fascinated by the poignant beauty of decay, and has been totally seduced by the majestic collapse of our 'frozen' world but paradoxically views it with a profound sense of dread.
Also featured are a series of thought provoking prints by Anne Daniels. Anne states "The differences in the artistic and the scientific approach to nature fascinate me. I spent ten of my youthful educational years learning about applied mathematics and modelling fluid flows, then recently eleven years studying art at the University of East London." At present she is studying for a doctorate using climate change as a chosen subject. Her prints use the analogy of the world as a sliced red cabbage with telephone masts, wind farms, oil rigs and overcrowded buildings on the surface and oil wells and mines in the interior. Although her prints are concerned with this serious theme, they are very decorative and not without humour.
Textile hangings by Jill Leech depict strata through the earth exposed by the excavation of minerals and coal. She uses recycled dust bin bags to represent coal so effectively that one has to touch to be sure, and real coal is also imbedded in the fabric.
The exhibition also includes Alan Burgess's paintings of local flooding and his wife the sculptor Angela Godfrey's drawings of trees in Epping Forest affected by drought. Paintings and prints by Gillian McKenna, Corrina Dunlea, Fiona Zobole and Julie Cooper are also being shown.
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The Jesus and Mary Chain - April Skies.
1 comment:
Very intriguing. Cool blog.
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