ANGELA HOLYOAK, LIZ LOCKYEAR, GREG RAMSDEN, JULIA VELLA and BEN YATES. Mallands Barn, Ingsdon, nr Bickington, Newton Abbot
This September, throughout Nine Days of Art, five talented artists will gather to produce an exhibition that spans the visual arts. Every medium from woodwork to metalwork, painting to textiles will be on show to give all visitors a varied and enriching experience on the Nine Days of Art trail.
Liz Lockyear
Nine Days of Art is a chance for Liz to reflect on the last year, put her work together and see what has been going on. The problem with working with re-used materials is that you do not know what will turn up and inspire a new range of work. The woven, textile clad barn (pictured below) made for The Artfarm Project at Rocombe Farm, a 14m x 7m textile installation using an old parachute, redundant tents and calligraphy, inspired by her text, 'Stay Awhile,' will not be one of her exhibits but the fabrics might make a re-appearance when the work is dismantled but the cowshed has to stay put. Smaller more intricately-worked textiles such as Black Waterfal (above left)l, a comment on pollution or Black takes White (above right), a piece on war, will be on show. You will also see large scale metal sculpture, exhibited in Trail 2005 (http://www.trail.org.uk">www.trail.org.uk), a new sculpture made for Trail 2006 and recent, smaller, more intricately worked pieces alongside prints and a new installation. All her work is made from materials that have seen another life, crashed car bonnets, copper cylinders and old textiles, the list is as endless as the things we discard. Liz's work is a mix of chance and observation, a response to all that is happening around her, however diverse. Liz trained in fashion and textiles and fine art, specialising in metal sculpture and embroidery. She comes from a family of builders and engineers and her practice reflects this mixed background. Choosing the most appropriate technique to render each new idea, Liz works in a variety of styles and media, including printmaking, watercolour, textiles, metal and recycled materials.
Angela Holyoak
Angela's first love is for the landscape, its wild physicality and colour, movement and interrelation with the human form. She responds to the possibilities that emerge through pushing semi-abstract images and paint around the canvas. These possibilities will be dictated by her personal interpretation of time and space tempered by the atmospheric effects of weather and mood on nature. She finds the gradual, or occasionally, the explosive physicality of an image, a stimulating and passionate venture. Many of these speculations take place before the work is complete. She sees her work as being very much in tune with the romantic ideals of English landscape painting, with an element of the sublime in subconscious and surreal image-making. The Atlantic light to be found in Western Cornwall, County Kerry, Ireland and The Outer Hebrides, influences her work and two painters influencing her work are in particular, Turner and Peter Lanyon. She needs to produce paintings that relax, nourish and feed the mind after feeling and absorbing the landscape. She works in all painting media, but most recently almost exclusively in oils. She can 'build' her paintings with transparent layers, carefully removing nearly as much paint as she puts on. She is constantly drawing into the image, often with left hand and eyes shut, obscuring it with paint, and then resurrecting with further drawing.
Julia Vella
Julia is primarily a maker, using a wide and varied list of materials in her work. She strives to produce beautiful, interesting objects that not only enhance lives but that can interact with the wider environment. Having completed a degree in ceramics and silversmithing she has always been interested in texture and pattern and her work reflects many influences from other cultures, for example jewellery and ceramics from Africa, and paintings and sculpture from Australia. She is a member of Trail which gives her the opportunity to work on a larger scale and develop new ways to use recycled materials that interact with the environment and the site. Her piece Mermaid Remade (see below, left) which is exhibited in Trail this year will be on show at this venue during open studios. She will also be exhibiting a range of jewellery made from non-precious materials. Felted forms, found materials and handmade beads are constructed into large colourful necklaces and bracelets creating pieces of wearable art. These large colourful bold statements should be worn with a smile and should initiate the same response from the viewer.
Ben Yates
Ben is a self-taught artist who has built up a collection of over 20,000 photos since he bought his first digital camera four years ago. Ben has been exploring different forms of the visual arts since he was a student in Oxford, and has lived and worked across Western Europe, London, and is now based in Devon where the flora has inspired him to meld his love of detail and structure into a new, bright art-form that combines his photography and simple sculpture. The 3D photo-structures are either large photographs, broken up and mounted at differing heights to give an impression of depth to mimic or contrast with reality; or collections of different pictures of a certain theme, using gradation of the colours to give the piece a flow. Due to the nature of this work, no two pieces will ever be the same. Ben is looking forward to exhibiting at Mallands Barn with the rest of the collective, as this is where he grew up.
Greg Ramsden
This will be Greg Ramsden's second year exhibiting in Nine Days of Art after last year's success. Greg works in oil paints and natural materials, of which he collects from his favourite locations in Devon. He then brings the two mediums together on his stretched canvases to give a sense of Devon's geological past and present. Greg is excited about the forthcoming joint exhibition and is looking forward to showing his freshest works to a new audience.
Liz Lockyear
Nine Days of Art is a chance for Liz to reflect on the last year, put her work together and see what has been going on. The problem with working with re-used materials is that you do not know what will turn up and inspire a new range of work. The woven, textile clad barn (pictured below) made for The Artfarm Project at Rocombe Farm, a 14m x 7m textile installation using an old parachute, redundant tents and calligraphy, inspired by her text, 'Stay Awhile,' will not be one of her exhibits but the fabrics might make a re-appearance when the work is dismantled but the cowshed has to stay put. Smaller more intricately-worked textiles such as Black Waterfal (above left)l, a comment on pollution or Black takes White (above right), a piece on war, will be on show. You will also see large scale metal sculpture, exhibited in Trail 2005 (http://www.trail.org.uk">www.trail.org.uk), a new sculpture made for Trail 2006 and recent, smaller, more intricately worked pieces alongside prints and a new installation. All her work is made from materials that have seen another life, crashed car bonnets, copper cylinders and old textiles, the list is as endless as the things we discard. Liz's work is a mix of chance and observation, a response to all that is happening around her, however diverse. Liz trained in fashion and textiles and fine art, specialising in metal sculpture and embroidery. She comes from a family of builders and engineers and her practice reflects this mixed background. Choosing the most appropriate technique to render each new idea, Liz works in a variety of styles and media, including printmaking, watercolour, textiles, metal and recycled materials.