Coco Crampton

Coco Crampton’s aesthetic has developed through “A process of borrowing, hi-jacking and reinterpreting from various periods in design history”. Coco's non-medium-specific practice reflects her dynamic and exploratory approach to making work, allowing for a fluid movement between different processes and materials.

This flexibility enables the artist to draw from a diverse range of techniques and traditions, including knitting, carpentry, ceramics, and printmaking, each offering its own unique set of possibilities. We caught up with Coco in advance of Plans for Living, her two-person exhibition with Louise Bristow.

Coco, Your work has an element of playfulness which is expressed through a range of mediums, how do you feel the different processes and materials work to communicate your ideas?

Coco: I’ve wanted to make installations that affect environments or mini universes which could include any object you might find in past or present material culture, tables, clothing, pots, chairs, architecture etc. Everything I present as an artwork can be seen in some way as found, it might be literally a found object, or a 3D facsimile recreated from an image or textbook, or as is the case with the pots shown in Plans for Living, found through participation in a tradition or craft - my quilted and knitted pieces would be in this category too. Although these finds bring with them memories from their past lives, when brought into my work they are affected and changed, and don’t necessarily operate as we might expect.

Image: Left: Louise Bristow, The Expedition (detail). Right: Coco Crampton, Wall Murmur

Where did your practice begin and how has it evolved over time?

Coco: I was born into an Acme house in East London in the early ‘80’s, and my childhood was spent in Norfolk where I grew up with my three siblings. My dad is an abstract painter and my mum was a textile artist. They ran a picture framing business and craft shop, supporting local artists and makers.

I studied painting for my BA at Norwich School of Art and Design but by the time I graduated I was making sculptural installations; my practice has continued to be predominantly three-dimensional ever since. I was lucky to graduate just as OUTPOST gallery was being founded in Norwich, and I became involved with the group of artists who were running the gallery and working in the city at the time. I didn’t have a studio but I kept being offered opportunities and finding ways to make work, either by getting help from friends who had access to workshops or making work in situ for exhibitions.

I started working with ceramics in 2008 when I moved to Yorkshire to start up a pottery. My term on the OUTPOST Steering Committee was due to end and I still hadn’t found a way to establish my own studio in Norwich, I needed a new adventure. I taught myself how to throw and started to build a business making hand-thrown domestic ware; I was interested in the kind of symbiotic relationship between art, life and work that had been a principle of design movements such as the Omega Workshops, the Bauhaus School, the Wiener Werkstätte and Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Although, after two years the business side of the pottery wasn’t a success, I took away from the experience the ability to throw, a relationship with the UK studio pottery tradition and love of Chinese, Korean and Japanese pottery. Without which the loose throwing, pulled handles, sense of organic growth and inevitability of form, visible in the pots shown in the present exhibition, wouldn’t have been possible.

In 2011 I re-entered education at the Royal Academy Schools in London, where I graduated with a postgraduate diploma in 2014. In the years following, my practice became more studio-based and I gradually set myself up to make ceramics again; picking up the skills from where I’d left off and using them to make sculptural pieces. All the sculptures in Plans for Living were thrown in my studio in London on a Leach kick wheel; they are glazed in glazes I mixed myself from raw materials and fired in an electric kiln.

Image: Coco Crampton Ceramics, Left to right: Can, Night Feeder, Down Pour, Swig, Spooler.

You enjoy playing with the language of objects can you talk a little about what draws you to design history?

Coco: I revisit objects from the past which were designed with a promise of some other way of living by designers attempting to reimagine the world and offer the possibility of a better existence. I’m interested in design failures as much as celebrated design icons, and the way a piece of furniture or an object can present a set of ideals, propose a solution, or reflect something about the society it is made for. By looking back at design movements, I try to tap into some of the energy that drove them and attempt to rekindle design aspirations that I feel are still relevant in the present day.

Coco: Your exhibition Plans for Living with Louise Bristow surrounds a common interest in the concept that form follows function and an artefact’s other functionality beyond being a jug or a chair, for example, how it can describe a place and time by its design. Can you talk a little more about your work included in the exhibition?

I’m excited about the exhibition because it will be the first time I’ve had the opportunity to single out a group of my pots, and show them in a more pared down way, and also to see what new conversations emerge when they are brought into relationship with Louise’s paintings. I’m showing a series of ceramics which resemble useable domestic pots, maquettes for architectural forms, or machines with an unknown purpose; they have tubelike protrusions attached to them that appear to be handles or spouts; they’re human in scale and there’s a sense of familiarity about them, however, they’re kind of impersonators really and don’t perform the functions they allude to. A few of them have titles which reference the act, necessity, or pastime of drinking, e.g. Night Feeder.

Image: Coco Crampton, Night Feeder

You also make knitted pieces that you have described as being quite nomadic and absorbing influence from the different atmospheres they are gradually made in, giving the finished pieces a slightly diaristic quality. Can you speak more about this?

Coco: Handknitting is unusual amongst the processes I work with, insomuch as it is not workshop/studio dependent and can be easily transported. I might knit a few rows on a train journey and then another few rows whilst waiting for my child to wake from a nap, another few whilst watching a film. The tension in each stitch and row varies ever so slightly, retaining something of what I was doing or thinking at the time.

What are you reading at the moment?

Coco: Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wall-paper and Other Stories

Could you tell me about your connection with the Charleston Farmhouse and how your lampshades came to be there?

Coco: I visited the house for the first time in 2013 and was intrigued by the colander-shaped ceramic lampshades that I saw dotted about, particularly the one hanging over Vanessa Bell’s table in the dining room. I started to think about what these objects had witnessed over the years and subsequently made a series of ceramic lampshades, The Truth About Cottages, for an exhibition in London. These then became part of a commissioned installation at Charleston, which also includes a large circular dining table, Horse Rub. These pieces are particularly important to me because they are in constant public use, activated by, and activating, people.

Image: Coco Crampton, Swig.

How do you see your work evolving in the future, and what new themes or mediums interest you?

Coco: I’ve recently made some new sculptures from plaster impregnated bandage and painted in household paint, I’m excited to see where they go and how they might sit alongside other works.

The title for this show Plans for Living is a theme that has interested me for a long time and I imagine will continue to do so, as I keep turning it over and looking at it from different perspectives. As a mother of a two-year-old, I spend a lot of time considering how the world looks from a child’s point of view - perhaps this will start to influence the work I make in the future.

As you may know, it is essential that we conclude with a studio playlist!

Please would you let me have a 5-10 track studio playlist? – this can be what you are listening to now or an ultimate playlist.

1. Little Brown Jug: Elizabeth Cotten

2. Children’s Songs: No.5: Chick Corea

3. Homesickness, Pt.2 : Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru

4. Evolution: Ablaye Cissoko

5. Mother’s Love: The Vernon Spring

Ceramic artworks pictured, courtesy of Coco Crampton and Belmacz

Plans for Living runs from April 20 - 10 May 2024

Opening Hours:

10am - 3pm Thursday -Sunday

Location:
Weald Contemporary at The Mill Studio
New House Farm Barns
Ford Lane
Arundel
BN18 0EF

By car: From central Arundel, Head South-West on Ford Road, slow past Ford Lane, turning right immediately after, follow the tourist sign for The Mill Studio.

By Train: Regular Services from London Victoria, Brighton and Southampton Central to Ford station. Walk south-west on Ford Road, continue past Ford Lane, turn right onto the footpath signposted for the Mill Studio.


All welcome but please leave pets in our courtyard or at home.

Louise Bristow

Everyday objects can provide a profound insight into history, reflecting the society that created them and the ideology of the period in which they were conceived.

In Plans for Living, Louise Bristow and Coco Crampton explore the idea that form follows function and encourages us to look more closely at structure, symbolism, conventions and absurdities of human life.

We caught up with Louise to find out more about her practise….

Louise, Your work has an element of playfulness, would you agree and if so how

important is this in communicating your ideas?

Louise: I’d agree with this. I approach my work with a playful attitude, in that I take pleasure in

making it, and I see my studio as a place where I can be curious and explore whatever I want to.

I never know where something will lead, and so making a piece of work that initially seems silly or

meaningless might be exactly the right thing to do. I also think play is a really basic characteristic of

being alive. I remember the feeling of being a child and just ‘making stuff’ with no particular end in

mind, simply that this was the way I wanted to spend my time. This feeling of fulfilment, of being

deeply engaged, is what I am trying to recreate when I’m working.

Can you explain the process of constructing the environments you go on to

paint and where you find your source materials?

Louise: I create table-top set-ups in my studio, which I draw and paint from. These set-ups look a bit

like miniature stage sets and include models that I make, (often based on buildings and

architectural structures that I have seen in real life and photographed) as well as flat elements, like

photographs from books, pieces of patterned or coloured paper and bits of packaging that I’ve

found in charity shops or markets. By working with these solid things that I can hold and move

around I’m able to create a composition that I can then paint from. It’s a really different process

from working out a composition by making preparatory sketches on paper. My working process

allows me to deal with material (images, objects, ideas) that interests me. The decisions I make about

what to include are subjective, not governed by any faithfulness to scale or chronology, so I might

place an illustration of a prehistoric flint axehead next to a photograph of a tram from 1930s Berlin.

I’m thinking about what these images mean to me, not personally but in terms of when they were

made, what they signify. There is a sense of narrative created by combining these different

elements, but I’m aware that the narrative is not fixed and is going to be different for everyone

looking at the painting. That’s fine, I’m not trying to communicate a message, I just want to work with

this content, but I’m not sure what I’m trying to say - that arises from making the painting, and even

then I can’t really put it into words.

Your exhibition Plans For Living with Coco Crampton surrounds a common

interest in the concept that form follows function and an artefact’s other

functionality beyond being a jug or a chair, for example, how it can describe a

place and time by its design. Can you talk a little more about your work

included in the exhibition?

Louise: I’m very interested in how any human-made artefact tells us something about the context in

which it has been made. not only it’s function but also its design and aesthetics will be determined by

the values of the society that created it. Most of the images I use in my set-ups come from older

books and magazines, pre-1970s. Printing from these eras has a very particularly quality to it, and

of course what is represented and how it is depicted is completely of its time. I re-use some of the

same motifs in different paintings, so for example in both Commuters and Cenotaph I’ve used

the same turquoise and grey structure, which is actually a model I made of a bit of street furniture,

a lighting/advertising unit outside the Haus des Lehrers (House of the teacher) in Alexanderplatz,

Berlin. The paintings Factory,Cenotaph and Substructure all feature a model of the corner of the

John Lewis building on Oxford Street. It’s a great piece of modern architecture and I use it to signify

modernist values, as well as for its visual qualities - its muted colour, the repetition of strong

horizontal and vertical lines. The building has a Barbara Hepworth sculpture on one of its facades,

which I recreated on my model but isn’t visible in these particular paintings. I am loathe to identify

every element in my paintings because I don’t see the point of doing this. And also it’s enjoyable

when someone recognises for themselves some element, or it has resonance for them. They don’t

need me to tell them what it ‘means’, and in any case I don’t believe this is how meaning in art

functions.

What are you reading at the moment?

Louise:The Judas Rose by Suzette Haden-Elgin, which is the second novel in a science fiction trilogy

set several centuries in the future about a group of female linguists developing a secret language

for women.

Architecture, Modernism and the Communist experience are all quite prominent themes in your

constructed landscapes, could you share what draws you to these subjects?

Louise: I don’t have any familial link to Eastern Europe or Russia but I did grow up at the end of the

Cold War; this was the world conflict that defined my teenage years in the 1980s. I’m sure this had

an effect, as did visiting the USSR, Poland and Berlin when I was a student. For all its deficiencies,

and despite the many crimes committed in its name, Communism was at least an alternative to the

Capitalist model. It was the daily experience of millions of people for decades, and I am curious

about what this was like, which has led me to explore the books, films and art made in these times.

The other side of the coin is that many things about Capitalism are very harmful, criminal and

unjust, but we (in the West) seem unwilling to question its dominance or legitimacy in the world. The

different ways we humans have of organising ourselves interest me, and Modernism was a

utopian project which attempted to design a better world, with more effective and beautiful homes,

objects, clothing, urban environments etc. I find this inspiring.

You studied printmaking at Brighton University and have been co-director of East Side print CIC

since 2020, what stemmed your interest in the process?

Louise: I realised over time that I enjoy the process of deconstructing an image in order to remake

it, which can be a characteristic of printmaking. It’s not an immediate activity, like drawing or

painting, where you’re applying marks directly to a surface. Printmaking usually happens at one

remove, via a block, plate or screen that creates the image, and I actually enjoy the distance that

the process gives you. So having studied painting and then printmaking I find it interesting that I’ve

developed this process for making paintings that is really protracted; first making the models and

finding and preparing the collage elements, in order to then arrange a set-up, and then eventually

paint it.

Can you recommend any good resources for artists in Brighton and the

surrounding area?

Louise: Well obviously East Side Print in Kemptown! This is the screenprint studio I run with my two

co-directors, Cath Bristow and Jane Fox, where you can learn how to screenprint on paper or

fabric and then join as a member when you feel confident to work independently. And just around

the corner from us is Bip-Art, a studio which specialises in the printmaking techniques we don’t do;

lithography, etching and relief (woodcuts and linocuts). I have a space at Phoenix Art Space, which is

a large building in the centre of Brighton housing over 100 artists’ studios, as well as a gallery and

education programme. There’s often something interesting going on at Phoenix, and there’s a nice

café! Fabrica and ONCA are two fantastic independent spaces that both have programmes of

exhibitions, workshops, events and film screenings.

As you may know, it is essential that we conclude with a studio playlist!

Please would you let me have a 5-10 track studio playlist? – this can be what

you are listening to now or an ultimate playlist.

Louise: I don’t often listen to music in my studio, I tend to listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I do love

music, I just don’t like listening to it when I paint. Here’s a list of some songs I like listening

to at the moment, just not in the studio.

The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra by Anna Von Hausswolff

Babies by Pulp

Minor Work (CloudsRemix) by Suuns

Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order

VCR by The XX

Podcast: I’m enjoying The Guardian’s Black Box

Lucinda Oestreicher

In our latest exhibition A Moment In Time Catherine Knight and Lucinda Oestreicher capture natural landscapes distilled in time.

Lucinda Oestreicher’s current work is an embodied conversation with the landscape of East Sussex. She encounters this place through the rhythm of walking, pausing as she becomes aware of a particular configuration of shapes as they align and freeze in a moment in time.

We spoke to Lucinda in the lead up to her exhibition at Weald Contemporary to find out more…..

Lucinda, would you begin by telling us a bit about yourself?

Lucinda: I grew up in London and now work in London and East Sussex. In the last few years my work has been influenced by my passion for walking and now walking has become an essential part of my research for painting.

You studied painting at Bath Spa University in 1979, at that time the course had been moved out of the town and into the village of Corsham, you remember this time fondly, describing it as an ‘idyllic’ place to study. Please can you tell us about your time there?

Lucinda: I chose to go to art college at what was Bath Academy of Art - based in Corsham, because of it’s reputation and because it was deep in the countryside of Wiltshire. It was a tiny college, only 100 students over the 3 years in Fine Art, Graphics and Ceramics. As students we lived in old stone cottages in the hills and valleys near the college, sometimes with an outside bathroom. It was an idyllic life to be in the middle of nowhere but have the sustenance and community of art college life. I ran the Film club there and projected 16mm films of obscure works from the bfi archive catalogue in the old barn. Some of us also spent time at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp to protest against the cruise missiles stored there. From there I went to Central School of Art on the Postgraduate Printmaking course, while running the screen printing studio back in Corsham as the technician. I went to the Slade as a Postgraduate where I experimented with film and video as well as printmaking. Since the Slade I have returned to painting but am still inspired by film and use photography as a tool for composition and research.

Red Trees, 30 x 40cm oil on board 2023 Downs & Winchelsea

How did you come to teach yourself?

Lucinda: I didn’t get to teaching until my late 40’s, I was living as an artist and running a decorating business on the side. I gave this up to start working in the painting department at the City Lit adult education college in Holborn. I really enjoyed developing courses such as ‘Ways into Abstract Painting’ and ‘Extended Drawing for Artists and Makers’ to allow the students to experiment hands on with different aspects of contemporary painting practices. Teaching really changed my own work as I found that creating courses for students made me unpick my own approaches to painting and re-think my practice. I have now been teaching there for 18 years and still enjoy teaching one day a week with my dedicated artist/ students on the Contemporary Painting Studio course.

You had an interesting childhood, encouraged to be free and creative, could you tell us more about life growing up?

Lucinda: I grew up in London in big family with four brothers, one half-sister and 2 step sisters. We were quite a big gang of unruly, scruffy kids and we loved to play football in the Islington streets and rampage around Hampstead Heath building dens. We lived in ramshackle houses in what was at the time called a bohemian lifestyle, with no conventional rules. My mother, Maggie Evans, was an artist who came from Wigan to go to the Slade in the 1950’s. She escaped from quite a repressive background where she didn’t fit in and completely created her own way of life in London. Her contemporaries at the Slade were David Storey, Paula Rego, Victor Willing, Anne Norman and Lucien Freud among others. She made our childhood full of colour and always encouraged us to be creative and resourceful as we didn’t have much money. My father was American and used to having the great outdoors to explore. He would take us out into the countryside at weekends to stay in remote cottages, or camp wild by rivers and cook on an open fire, which gave me a great love of being outdoors.

Farm Track, 30 x 40 oil on board 2022 Winchelsea

What is it about the Sussex countryside that keeps you returning to it as a subject matter?

Lucinda: When I was a child we used to stay at this tiny cottage near Glynde, Lewes which had no electricity. My stepfather hand-printed wallpaper for Peggy Angus who rented the cottage from Dick the Farmer. It was a magical place to be in and discover the Downs, particularly the Dewpond; a great dip in the ridge of hills, like an amphitheatre, full of space and air and the sound of larks. There is a special chalky light here and always huge skyscapes and wild wind. In the painting ‘Furlongs’ this is the view from Firle Beacon – seeing the cottage from far above, over 50 years later. Like looking down at my past from very far away. Now I spend as much time as possible here in the Downs following the chalk footpaths that wind amongst the hills. It is the height of these hills, and the far reaching views that give a feeling of flying above the flat plains that I find compelling.

The fact that it is a farmed landscape and there are traces of human intervention going back in time is also interesting to me, this isn’t a remote detached mountain wilderness. I love that mixture of wildness and ordinary domesticity in the turn of a footpath, the old stile or gatepost, and yet it’s possible to be quite alone in the wildness of the elements.

Cuckmere 50 x 60cm oil on board 2024 Downs

Could you speak a little about the paintings included in your current exhibition at Weald Contemporary with Catherine Knight ‘A Moment in Time’

Lucinda: The works in this exhibition span from 2018 – 2024.

During this time especially because of lockdown I was able to spend more time in the countryside and walking the same paths repeatedly made me look at moments and places in a deeper way. Many of them are from the area around Winchelsea in East Sussex, and the later ones come out of exploring the footpaths of the South Downs.

Around Winchelsea the Military Canal, the shingle levels of Rye Harbour and Winchelsea Beach, with it’s gravel pits changing shape with every storm and downpour became exciting forms. Now I’m getting to know the contours and atmospheres of local walks here in the Downs, it takes some time of repeated walking for me to be able to absorb and put this landscape into my work. Some of the paintings refer to both areas eg Red Trees which started as a Winchelsea landscape but has now merged with a windswept Downland walk.

My current paintings are a response to the visual and physical experience of exploring these landscapes. Walking through the same local places in all seasons, seeing them in motion, from the rhythm of a walk, then stopping when a particular configuration of shapes aligns and freezing that moment in time in a photograph or drawing, to be referenced back in the studio.

In the studio the process of painting takes over and images evolve through reworking, erasure and overpainting. I’m interested in the balance between what needs to be made explicit and the power of absence.

Shadows and reflections change in shape and density at different times of day and season. In the paintings they become solid forms, as important as any other objects. The fences and field boundaries are dynamic dividing lines carving up the space on the painting’s surface. Tracing the same paths over time a painting may hold within it numerous moments. Images of different walks and memories of engagement with specific places overlap. These moments of repetition and identification co-exist, overlap and interrupt in conversation with each other.

 This conversation is about being with and within the landscape.  I get to know the sense of a place by walking through it, then working with it over time in the studio. This changes the place next time I come across it – I experience a sense of recognition and special relationship, like meeting an old and familiar friend.

Bridge, 9 x 23cm oil on board 2022 Winchelsea

What are you reading at the moment?

Lucinda: Books and films are really important to me and influence my work in the same way that other artists do. Some of these are – artists Prunella Clough, Keith Vaughan, Susan Absalom, writers Nan Shepherd, Janet Frame, Edward Thomas, William Carlos Williams and Jane Bowles. The films of Werner Herzog and Jane Campion, and the early films of Wim Wenders. At the moment I’m reading Jean Rhys – her biography by Miranda Sawyer and her collected works. I can’t believe how modern her work feels, how ‘in the moment’ yet she was writing 100 years ago.

As you may know, it is essential that we conclude with a studio playlist! Please would you let me have a 5-10 track studio playlist?

Lucinda:

S Bach – All his work but at the moment the Cello suites and The Chaconde - Partita in D minor and Chorale

PJ Harvey – White Chalk

The Cure – The Forest

The Raincoats - Odyshape

David Bowie – Hunky Dory

Van Morrison – Veedon Fleece

Meet Lucinda Oestreicher on Saturday 9th March from 11am! - It’s free of charge and suitable for all ages.

All artwork featured in our exhibition A Moment in Time is now available to view and purchase HERE

For more information get in touch: info@wealdcontemporary.co.uk

Catherine Knight

Catherine Knight in her Bristol Studio.

In our latest exhibition A Moment In Time Catherine Knight and Lucinda Oestreicher capture natural landscapes distilled in time.

In mid 2023 Catherine Knight was awarded the Mawddach Residency providing her with the opportunity to fully immerse herself in working from the natural landscape of Eryri. The artist found herself transfixed by the sense of time passing from a single window overlooking the Mawddach estuary which seemed to act as a frame containing the vastness of the sky beyond.

We spoke to Catherine in the lead up to her exhibition at Weald Contemporary to find out more…..

Hello Catherine! Could you please introduce yourself and say a little about what you do?

 Catherine: Hi, I am a painter based at BV Studios, Bristol. I paint using oil and gouache, mainly landscapes, window views and recently the full moon. I have been painting for nearly 20 years now since I graduated from my BA and I also teach oil painting workshops.

 (Image: Catherine Knight - 16:55 17th January, 2022, Lake Bled Slovenia.)

I first came across your work when you began your Isolation Windows project, could you explain how that came about and how it has evolved?

Catherine: The Isolation Window project evolved out my need to make work at a point when I had all my time taken from me. My sons were 2 ½ and 5 when the first lockdown started in 2020 and I found myself suddenly thrown into full time childcare. We quickly ditched any attempts at home schooling and just went out for lots of walks and forest adventures. I have often painted window views but at this particular moment in time, our windows became even more poignant.  I put a call out on social media asking people to send me their Isolation Window view and I would then paint them in gouache and post them on Instagram, one a day. I carved out a small amount of time and painted them for a few hours every other evening and I set myself rigid boundaries, for example, they were all exactly the same sized piece of paper and they were titled with the name of the sender and their location. Because my younger son was an early riser, I would post them first thing and would often be the first post people saw when they looked at their phones in the morning. The project grew and reached many corners of the world.

 It was such a strange time for everyone, in different ways, and I don’t think we have processed the effect it has had but this project offered me a bit of an escape and a way of connecting with many people. I felt like I was visiting different rooms, houses and lives in my imagination. Each time a new lockdown was announced, there was always a tiny consolation for me that I could paint more windows.

 (Image: Catherine Knight - 03:28, 20th October, 2021 Totterdown, Bristol)

I then extended this project with my full moon series, this time asking people to send me their photos of the full moon from wherever they are in the world. I am interested in the idea that we are all looking at the same moon from different viewpoints, the same moon that our ancestors looked at. I like the random element of both these projects, that you don’t know who will respond or what they will send and also the sense of connection. If my painting can make a connection with somebody, that makes me happy.

(Image: Catherine Knight, Golden Hour, gouache on paper, framed size 46 x 36 cm, 2023) 

Both Lucinda Oestreicher and yourself studies at Bath Spa University at different times but shared the experience of some incredible tutors including Michael Simpson and Maria Lalic - Can you tell me a bit more about your time there?

Catherine: I did a MA at Bath Spa in 2007-8 and I found it transformational. After a few years out of education, I really appreciated the full-time studio space and access to expert technical advice. Maria Lalic was my main tutor and I felt she gave me a sense of permission to fully explore ideas that I hadn’t quite had the maturity or confidence to develop on my BA. There was a focus on all the choices we make as painters- depth of canvas, whether the edges were painted or not, and on the value of surface preparation. I remember Michael Simpson being a charismatic visiting tutor and he used to guess whose paintings belonged to who as he believed that people in some way looked like their work (he guessed correctly.) He also urged us to keep painting, as it’s a hard road to take but you one that you must persist with.

The work included in your current exhibition A Moment in Time was created during your time on the Mawddach Residency, how was your time there and what drew you to the location?

Catherine: I was drawn to the stunning rural location of Eryri and the chance to have the time and space to fully immerse myself in painting. I initially applied with the intention of painting the full moon, “en plein air”, however due to cloud cover, I never actually saw the moon!  In the end my main preoccupation was with the double-arched windows in the studio overlooking the Mawddach estuary, especially as night fell and the light changed. I often woke up in the night and would go and check at each window to see if the moon was visible, hence all the nocturnal images. The view was constantly changing with the tidal pull with a sand bar appearing and disappearing over the course of the day. I had an overwhelming feeling of being on board a ship with a sense of movement past the window.

(Image: Catherine Knight, Mirror, Oil on linen, 100 x 80cm, 2024)

What are you reading at the moment?

Catherine: I always have a big pile of books next to my bed and often get a bit obsessed with one author and do a deep dive.  Recently, I have been reading all the work of Norwegian author, Karl Ove Knaussgard. A few years ago, it was Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. Currently, I am in love with Irish author, Clare Keegan, who has an incredible economy with words and can say so much in one crushingly good sentence. I also enjoy paintings that say a lot with perhaps very few marks, for example, Lois Dodd, so maybe there is a link there. But, to answer your question, I am currently reading Keegan’s short story collection, Antarctica.

There is a feeling of solidity and balance to your painting, the forms really belong to each other as they naturally occur. Is it the serendipity of finding the right composition / light or moment that drives you to take up residencies like Mawddach?

Catherine: I think residencies take you out of your normal routine and being alone in such a striking location will often lead to seeing things afresh. I am drawn to a sense of balance or calm, for example the sky reflected in the estuary, the evening sun falling on the studio wall, or the drama of when the sky turns dark just before a huge rainstorm. Capturing these fleeting moments is what interests me.

(Catherine Knight, Pause, oil on board, 30.5 x 23 cm)

If you could wake up tomorrow in any time or place in the world and stay for just one day, where and when would it be?

Catherine: I have thought long and hard about this one but since it has been such a cold, damp February here in Bristol, I would love a day in the heat of the New Mexico desert with Georgia O’Keeffe in, say, 1950 when she had moved permanently to Abiquiú. I would love to experience her calm presence and maybe go out walking with her. She is such a unique figure in art history, and I think her early watercolours are some of my favourite artworks. My mum gave me a book of her watercolours for my 16th birthday and I still love looking at them!

What do you have coming up in 2024?

Catherine: I am planning a trip to Munich which is where my grandfather was from and where he met my grandmother when they were both studying zoology in the late 1920’s before having to leave in 1933 due to having a Jewish surname. I have lots of photos that my grandmother took there and I am hoping to retrace some of her steps. I will also visit Murnau where Gabriele Munter lived and worked. A sense of place is very important to my work, and I am hoping that this trip will provide lots of new inspiration.

Did you have a favourite artist or illustrator growing up?

Catherine: It has always been about colour for me so as a teenager growing up in Cornwall, I discovered all the St.Ives artists and particularly loved the intense colours and freedom of Patrick Heron’s work. We saw a huge retrospective of Heron’s work and also a Pierre Bonnard show at the Tate Britain which had a big impact on me.

(Catherine Knight, Still Moment, oil on board, 30.5 x 23 cm)

As you may know, it is essential that we conclude with a studio playlist! Please would you let me have a 5-10 track studio playlist?

Catherine: This is so tricky! In the studio I tend to listen to 6 music because I like the sense of serendipity and also the feeling of connection to the rest of the world. I also listen to soundtracks, for example, The Bear soundtrack is amazing and allows me to hang onto the feeling that a TV series has given me. I love quite melancholy music such as Bonnie Prince Billy and Bill Callahan but if I want to get stuff done in the studio I might put on something a bit more energetic such as:

Nadine Shah- Topless Mother

Self Esteem- Fucking Wizardry

Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Gold Lion

PJ Jarvey- This mess we’re in

Laura Marling- Only the Strong

Sophie Ellis Bexter- Murder on the Dancefloor (little nod to Saltburn here!)

All artwork featured in our exhibition A Moment in Time is now available to view and purchase HERE

Keep an eye out for our interview with Lucinda Oestreicher next week……

Josephine Birch

Portrait of Josephine

In September 2023 Josephine was awarded the Mortitz-Heyman Residency at Borgo Pignano, creating a vast body of works inspiring her new exhibition with Weald Contemporary. In Josephines new collection of drawings, prints and paintings Toscana Heat/Light we are drawn into the heat and light of Tuscany. We caught up with Josephine to find out more about her life and work.

So Josephine - would you start please by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.  

 Josephine: I’m an artist and illustrator from Devon with a keen interest in wildlife and storytelling. I teach printmaking and love working with all kinds of people to find a way for them to engage with creative processes. My works usually begin on location and are often finished whilst out and about; these works and walks inspire my studio practise where print making helps expand my ideas and open up narratives and imagination. I work as an illustrator and write and illustrate children's picture books which are always informed by my drawing practise. Drawing is my greatest love.  

Can you tell us about Birch Press and how that came about? 

Josephine: Birch Press houses all my illustration for childrens picture book, novels and chapter books. The work is rooted in all the same sensibilities and values as my drawing, painting and print practise; landscape, the natural world, living and working with animals etc. I really love how books, and picture books in particular, bring artworks into homes, schools, libraries; it is the most direct way for people of any background to access art and in the picturebook form 32 pages of it !  It is often childrens first introduction to great artists. Looking at picture books was my biggest inspiration as a child. 

 I decided to separate my illustration from my painting, drawing and printmaking practise because it made it simpler to promote the different work and organise online portfolios. It’s hard enough as an artist that many industries want to quickly pigeon hole creatives output. There are so many ways in which these kinds of disciplines over-lap and it really just comes down to the intention and application but it frustrates me that Illustrators are sometimes considered lesser artists. A wonderful artist may find the book the best form for their work, or may care that children are the recipients of it. Thats a wonderful thing that shouldn't be overlooked !  

Rising, watercolour 30.5x30.5 Framed

Did you have a favourite work of art or artist when you were growing up and did you always know you were an artist? 

 Josephine: As I mention above my first introduction to artists work was through picture books and I absolutely loved Brian Wildsmith, Shirley Hughes, Mairi Hedderwick and Raymond Briggs. They sparked the first realisations that this could be a job, a way of life. My mum was a dress maker and taught Textiles and my sister is a brilliant painter so I was surrounded by creativity as a child. I also really remember my mum pinning up a copy I’d made at primary school of Monets ‘The Cliffs at Etretat’ and feeling really proud of it. These kinds of little boosts really matter in giving young people the confidence to keep making work, especially in today's state school systems that so poorly support creative thinking. My sister and I were very lucky to have a mum who always emotionally backed our pursuits in the arts. 

When you were hosting the Drawn to Print workshop at Weald Contemporary you had some beautiful and unexpected equipment to work with, do you find yourself continuing to experiment with new ways of mark making or do you have a favoured toolkit you return to time and again? 

Josephine: At Cambridge School of Art we were always taught to keep challenging ourselves with new tools and processes. I think that has stayed with me. For me its all about a balance  between skill and control coupled with innovation and playfulness which allows for some serendipity. This only comes from lots of practise!  I also think the idea sometimes dictates the process – so I let that happen too. 

  I do have a kit for working on location but I swap and change things. I try to take out a limited tool kit most days to take some decisions out of the equation, but it will usually consist of a small watercolour pan set, some tubes of gouche and jars of ink and a full pencil case with charcoals and pencils. 

Portrait of Josephine and Maggie

Can you tell us more about being awarded the Mortitz-Heyman Residency at Borgo Pignano, and creating this incredibly soulful body of works that inspired your solo exhibition with Weald Contemporary? 

Josephine: The Royal Drawing School is a gift that keeps on giving. They so beautifully support their alumni with residency opportunities. It is through these kinds of residencies that I have really learnt how to work in the studio and what to do with these drawings I make on location. The residency at Pignano is quite isolating in ways. You have your own studio apartment on this huge estate and some days I wouldn’t say more than ‘Ciao’ to the farmers all day long. It’s a strange thing that wouldn't be sustainable for too long (at least for me) but it gives you this rare opportunity to not think about anyone or anything other than the work. Everyday is organised solely around that. Each day I would head out early with my sketchbooks and drawing board, with various materials and by the end of each day I’d find a new thing that I wanted to return to for tomorrow, considering when the light might be best, the shadows longest. I have to pace myself as drawing is very exhausting, and I was walking miles in the heat, so I’d tend to allow time to play in my sketchbook as well as time for large focused works. I’d also spend time zooming in and zooming out, focusing on close ups of flora and fauna and then placing these moments into larger works. It requires a certain amount of discipline but once I start it becomes like an obsession; I did not want to leave ! It was so wonderful to have the opportunity to show all of the work together at Weald and reflect on this time. It gave me the opportunity to continue leaning into the experience and make works reflecting my time there, such as the large hanging monoprints. 

You once described the act of drawing to be ‘like a spell’ perhaps beginning a drawing and realising all at once that hours have past by and you are still completely focused on what you are doing. Has this always been the case? and can you tell us about a favourite drawing experience from Borgo Pignano? 

 Josephine: This really began with spending more time drawing on location, which is something we did a lot of on my degree at CSA. I realised that I was sitting still and remaining totally focused (I think we’d call it hyperfocusing nowadays!) Every drawing starts with a period of feeling like I don’t know how to make the right marks, how to organise them and make them communicate what I want them too, but it usually starts to become clear once I’ve dropped into the process more – a bit like meditating or taking a walk, it takes a while to really sink into what you're doing. I think this is why drawing on location is so important for me; coupling the physicality of being outdoors and adding some hurdles puts a boundary between the idea and the work and helps me to turn it into something more than just a straight copy of what’s in front of me. You’re there for extended periods of time, with all the stories in your head, all the emotions of what's going on in your life, and you're responding to the world directly around you. 

 I can remember each drawing I made and where I was when I made it, even the thoughts that were running through my mind. It creates a of kind time capsule of that moment in my mind. The one I really remember was the last drawing I made, ‘View to Borgo Pignano’ when I was exhausted after walking for hours zig zagging my way across the estate. It was boiling hot and I found shade under a little oak tree in the middle of this huge field. All the wildflowers surrounded me, the grasses where singing with grass hoppers and little hard working dung beetles and ants. The clouds were racing across the sky casting shadows over the rolling hills and I began this enormous drawing. I felt I’d bitten off more than I could chew but I was so tired I just relaxed into the moment, focusing on the fact that this was my last afternoon, the last day alone in this amazing place. It became one of my favourite drawings. I think you can see it isn’t as well organised as some of the other large drawings, but I think it has this very full sense of Tuscany, alive and buzzing with so much wildlife and colour and movement.  

Heading Out to Draw, 132x184cm, 126cmx178cm, charcoal, 2023 Unframed

 You have produced some Silent Book which are beautiful, Can you talk more about this? 

Josephine:  I love silent books because they can be read by any person of any language or reading ability. It also gives the reader this sense of creating the story alongside the artist. Our schools push reading levels so hard onto young children despite evidence that this can do more harm than good. We really hamper children in their creativity with all these tests and rules around language, reading and writing. Wordless picture books puts the story telling back into the childs hands and if adults are reading with children it is very quickly obvious who is better at reading pictures! Adults often forget this particular skill !   

  In terms of my practise the wordless/silent book is so akin to all my work- a sense of narrative, of how images work side by side to tell a story. Its always on my mind. If I paint a house with a lit window, the subsequent painting will be of who might be sitting just inside  and then what landscape this house sits in and so on. 

What are you reading at the moment? 

Josephine: I nearly always have non-fiction on the go alongside fiction as I gobble up fiction and am very slow at non-fiction! I’m reading A field guide to getting lost by Rebecca Solnit and I’m rereading Little Women for the millionth time. Very comforting. 

We were discussing your open-source printing press which led us to discover our mutual appreciation of School Prints, can you talk a bit about how you see print evolving and becoming more accessible? 

Josephine: The history and nature of print making is all about ‘the dissemination of information to the masses’. Like picture books, print is a way to make art works available and affordable to a greater amount of people. I teach printmaking at a university and love seeing the thrill of the reveal and the magic of the science of print dawn on new printmakers. Unfortunately, printmaking processes can be expensive to access as we often need specialist equipment so I love exploring and teaching processes that can be done in a sophisticated way by anyone. The tiny Etching press means we can bring printmaking to schools and rural areas. I’m also really interest in how we better support rural arts opportunities. So often funding is based in cities, and when it does come to rural areas its isn’t down the lanes but still centred in local cities. I am much more interested in creating very good opportunities for fewer people rurally than I am in reaching larger audience in urban places that already have these opportunities. Cities have the infrastructure, the funding, the museums and the access routes. How we reach children and communities who have none of this is far more interesting and important to me. Rural communities are so often overlooked and there is a general assumption that living rurally means more wealth; in fact some of the most deprived UK areas are rural! 

Studio playlist time! Please could you list 10 of your favourite studio tracks? It can be what you are listening to at the moment or an ultimate collection, the choice yours… 

Josephine:  I get absolute obsessions and my current is Kate Bollinger and there are constants like Kate Bush and Erykah Badu but the mood has to be exactly right for what I’m working on. My ultimate studio playlist would go something like; 

1. Kate Bollinger – Lady in the Darkest Hour 

1. Goat Rodeo – Attaboy 

1. Talking Heads – This must be the place  

1. Eykah Badu – Appletree 

1. The Fretless – Waiving to Ryan 

1. Johnny Flynn – The Wrote and The writ 

1. Tom Verlaine – Breakin' My Heart 

1. Kate Bush – Bertie 

1. Etta James – I'd rather go blind 

1. Solomon Burke – None of us are free  

 All of the works included in Josephines exhibition will be for sale via out online shop until 9 Feb 2024.

Edward Liddle

We join Kent-based artist Edward Liddle in his studio to ask him some questions. His studio, tucked away in a suburb in an old 1960's warehouse, is filled with hundreds of bits of Chinese rice paper, painted on with textile patterns and then either stored in archival boxes or hung with nails and magnets. Textiles, prints, poetry and ceramic experiments are all dotted about between mugs of tea, and plates of biscuits. Ed is wearing a heavy cotton workman's jacket and some lace-up black plimsolls, and he greets us with a gruff but joking shout of "you can't park there!"

Could you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind this recent series of works that are going into your show, Fade Resistant, and how they came to be?

The works on show are primarily from the past eighteen months or so. They are works on paper, the imagery all taken from my own personal archive. I’m always collecting imagery for my archive, sometimes I take photographs and at other times I take screenshots from things im watching on tv or streaming. The archive contains a wealth of visual material and is a reflection of my fascination/being drawn to decoration and domestic motifs. The works on show at Weald Contemporary are my workings out on paper, painting the imagery from my archive. They’re incredibly personal and sort of form a non rationalised diary, however they are also hyper visual and at a remove from me. They are elusive but contain under the surface a lot of narrative, if you take some clues from the titles or if simply evoking memories for audiences.

There are so many pattens here so this must be difficult, but - what's your favourite textile pattern you've come across and why?

I really like the utilitarian textiles of buses and public transport. Legends like Margaret Gill who when creating their work had the brief of ‘highly patterned and pleasing but must hide the dirt’ – or something like that. It’s a great insight into those design and aesthetic decisions. We live with an enormous amount of designed and created visual material in our everyday lives. Often overlooked, I love the idea that my works might allow audiences to re-see the things they walk past everyday having witnessed them in my works and had a moment of recognition.
 
Are there any odd or surprising patterns painted in the exhibition that you'd like to talk about?

I love the dancing ladies. This is an example of me pinching some visual material from someone else’s archive. In the Museo Novecento in Milan, this was a scrap of paper from the personal archive of artist Alghiero Boetti. Is it a piece of wrapping paper, or maybe some clothing came wrapped in it. It has a life of which I will know very little, or if I do it will be by pure happenstance. I like the idea that someone probably in the 20th century created this motif which was turned into an object, not one of great worth but then in turn Boetti was attracted to the motif, and then the curator who decided to hang the piece in the museum, and then along I come and think ohhh that’s funky. It’s a fascinating and totally unpredictable lineage, one that straddles art, design, commerce and all the support characters that had to be in place for us to each encounter that one motif. PLUS of course it is cheeky and suggestive but also fun and a heavily loaded piece of imagery. I don’t deny it is also perhaps outdated and also sexualises women. All from a scrap of paper. And that is another layer to all the works here, imagery IS loaded and all imagery has a story or a political statement to make, if only we look and reflect and listen to it.
 
You've had a bit of time in art academia - how do you think this has influenced your practice?

I’ve always enjoyed both making creative output as well as researching and writing about it. I’d say my time in academia has encouraged me to try and approach making my work from multiple angles and to not deny the power or possible political nature of the material I’m working with. Social history is rightfully being embedded in contemporary art practices more and more. I like to think my work has something to say, something to add, but I also try not to over intellectualise the work … not until after it’s made anyway!

Top image: Edward Liddle in this Studio.

Bottom image: Install shot of Fade Resistant at Weald Contemporary. Image credit Hollie Jean Crosbie

You also co-founded Knotworks in Tunbridge Wells, how does it work and impact upon your art?

Knot Works is an arts organisation that I co-founded with Holly Jean Crosbie and Sam Wheeler. We provide studios for artists and makers, run workshops and also programme exhibitions and host artist development events. I am always interested in trying to bring like-minded people together, to discuss share and sometimes disagree about what we’re working on. Whatever anyone says, we are always made better by engaging with others about our work.

I am adamant that the more artist studios and artistic provision there is, the better. If we want to maintain making moving, inspiring, high quality creative output we need to support and champion artists and makers. So, yeh, it’s important to me and I believe makes my own work better because I’m part of something bigger than just myself.
 

I'm interested in the way you've said these works can hang in a modular fashion; what's your approach to the idea of exhibiting, and is this intrinsic to the way you make work?

I love a process. And I find structure really useful in making work. With the modular nature of the works, it’s really satisfying to know that I just need to grab some paper and paint and crack on. I’ve found as time has gone on that in order to make work I need to reduce the possible barriers to making. But, on the other side of having made something, when the works are all interchangeable its really quite fun to play around with the modular pieces and see what happens, it’s extremely low risk because I’m not intrinsically changing the work in anyway except placing something next to something else and seeing what happens, what do they ‘say’ to one another.

What are you working on next?

Always painting more imagery from my archive. More large works on wallpaper. I am also continuing to explore new sculptural installations, much like the floor tiles I made for my exhibition Carrément at Centrale in Brussels. The works here reflect just one part of my work! Oh and I’ve been thinking a lot about how performance and writing might activate works such as the paintings and wallpapers. What are the stories that those work tell and can I be more direct with those narratives? Lots to explore!
 
Lastly, You are very much a music person; you even used to be a hospital radio DJ so this may seem impossible, but: what would be your 5 track studio playlist, and why is it Prince?

HA!

Yes always Prince. But, at the moment:

PJ Harvey – I inside the old year dying

Miles Davis – On the Corner

Blur – The ballad of Darren

Alice Coltrane – Journey in Satchidananda

Laura Marling – Song for our Daughter

Packaging Study #5 (Boetti’s dancing ladies) Oil on calligraphy rice paper, 65 x 78cm

Andrew Churchill

 Leading us on an exploration of the night, Andrew Churchill presents a series of paintings capturing intimate views from West Sussex to the broad vistas of the Northern Irish coast.

A range of emotions are captured in these changing sky scenes, from evening to dusk and night, showing the complex relationship and characters of the sun and moon. Rendered in an intricate palette, we are invited to see the night, dark and full of colour. We caught up with Andrew Churchill in the lead up to his exhibition with us.

You began the series of paintings that feature in your exhibition Dark Is The Night in Yapton, was it always your intention to document the skies through this transition from living in West Sussex to living in Northern Ireland?

No, it wasn’t a plan at all. I was visiting Northern Ireland regularly and making drawings of the village we were staying in. The weather was glorious so the skies were bright and blue. Gradually these paintings started to take on a feeling of dusk. Simultaneously I was seeing the development of houses encroach on the skyline around where I lived in Yapton. It was very depressing, but as I walked to and from the studio at night I enjoyed seeing the houses lit by moonlight. I decided it was an opportunity. An artist who lives in the same village said something like “you’ve made something positive out of all the house-building” which I suppose is true. When we moved to Northern Ireland in July this year, our house is on the side of a hill, looking across a huge expanse of sea horizon. There is so much uninterrupted sky! This was the prompt to make new paintings of the open sky. Whilst the subject is important, of far greater importance is the making of a successful painting. The ‘limited’ subject matter of skies, is a good structure to explore painting with.

What is your studio space like in Ballywalter and how do you see your practice and relationship with the local art scene evolving?

It’s very early days for me in Ballywalter but the artists I have met so far have been incredibly welcoming. I have a painting in a group show in Belfast at the moment. It’s a really strong show and I am very proud to be part of it. There is a very little by way of a commercial gallery scene in Northern Ireland. This means artists are doing it for themselves in studio gallery spaces, or showing in Dublin or London. I have a little plan to try and address that, with a gallery space where I live in Ballywalter.

My studio is in the machine-end of an old milking parlour. It’s a lovely space though I am doing battle with starlings and pigeons who keep shitting on my paintings! My current work is fairly small so the space works well. I have plans to have a larger studio in the milking parlour, but that will have to wait until the Spring next year.
 
What has been your best discovery so far?

I just saw a great show at Ards Art Centre by Daniel Coleman. Very spare and beautiful hang. Wonderful paintings, mostly blues. And a painting in the group show I am in at Arcade Studios by Hannah Clegg is just knockout. It’s called ‘Is My Ear Deep or Deeper’ and I’d buy it if I had the money. 
 
It is interesting that as an artist your work allows you to travel, not necessarily literally, but people keep in touch with you through the work, and so the work travels, the images travel, and therefore you’re not static either.

There is an old adage that all still-life paintings are actually self portraits. I absolutely believe this to be true and feel it extends to all ‘good’ painting. I suppose, having relocated, but connected as we are through the limitations of social media, it would be true to say that people can connect with where I am, what I am doing and to a degree how I’m feeling, through the work. During a Covid lockdown I was conversing with an artist, via Instagram, who is in Brooklyn, New York. He didn’t realise I was based in England. He said what a shame it was that I couldn’t come and visit him in the studio because of Covid. I replied that the biggest barrier was the Atlantic Ocean! But it occurred to me that his NY studio was as cut off from me, at that time, as my friend Piers Ottey’s studio which was 5 minutes up the road. 

I am amused that having relocated to Northern Ireland I am now having an exhibition with you at Weald, just minutes from where I used to live! But more than that, it is a great opportunity to tie the two worlds together for a few weeks of exhibition. Every artist will tell you that it is a lonely profession. It’s impossible not to feel isolated in your studio. Moments of connection with other artists, or their work, are of the utmost importance.

Paths To The Sea

I like to think that your painting rewards a careful viewer, can you speak to the recurring themes and motifs that appear in your work?

The repetition of motifs and themes in my work is largely born from the realisation that there are an infinite number of ways to tackle the same subject. I’m not interested in painting ‘a view’, I’m interested in making a good painting. Painting is such a ridiculous and often infuriating activity, there is always something more to do with it, something to find out. I hope that, collectively, across a group of works on the same idea, a sense of what I am trying to achieve comes across, and that individually, a painting can stand for its intentions. 

I have been incredibly fortunate in the last two years to have been a studio assistant to the painter Michael Simpson. He was one of my painting tutors at Bath in the late 90s. His work and his attitude toward work have been a huge influence. The sheer rigour in which he approaches his painting is phenomenal. Whilst working with him on an exhibition of his drawings, of which there were more than 100, the phrase ‘variety in repetition’ kept coming to mind. Although ostensibly the subject matter was limited to just 4 or 5 subjects (squints, benches etc..) the sheer variety and difference was extraordinary, even between two drawings that on initial viewing were almost identical. 
 
What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading Eduardo Paolozzi’s Writings and Interviews. I’m fascinated by his Automobile Heads and Standing Figures so I’m scouring the book for references to them whilst enjoying the wider writing on his work. He did what I would do with a time machine, he visited Alberto Giacometti in his Paris studio. He writes “…he was obsessed about his ideas and worked all night, and everything else in life for him was just a grey shadow.”. I’m waiting for my copy of Jon Fosse's A Shining to arrive. He was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Every artist should read his Septology.

The title of your exhibition Dark Was The Night is taken from the Blind Willie Johnson track “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” which is a song with a powerful vocal and no lyrics. How did this come to be the title of your exhibition?

It was a phrase I kept saying to myself in the studio as I worked. There is a brilliant compilation album of the same name, mostly American musicians, recorded as an Aids and HIV awareness fundraiser. The original Blind Willie Johnson track is extraordinary. To have such a lyrical title but its words are never actually sung in the song is quite brilliant. As is often the way with Blues music, other artists have woven the refrain into their lyrics. I like the finality of the words, the absoluteness of the statement. The lack of mystery implied in the words suited my paintings.

Does music play a big part in influencing your work generally?

It certainly influences the titles I give my work. Often a song lyric will spring out whilst I am working which fits the painting exactly. I use music to influence my making of the work more than anything. If it’s getting too cosy and I need to disrupt the painting, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew or Slint’s Tweez will be put on the stereo. Its both an atmospheric influence and a reminder not to be safe, to push the limits.
 
Please can you give us a 5-10 track studio playlist?

Oh, this is really hard! 10 tracks! 10 albums would be easier. I spend long hours in the studio so I generally listen to albums all the way through, often all the albums I have by one artist in a day. I recently spent a joyful day with Nirvana! But if I’m pushed, here are the 10 tracks and the albums they come from:

Dark Was The Night - Blind Willie Johnson

Derek & The Dominos - Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (from Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs)

Slint - Carol (from Tweez) 

Miles Davis - Pharoah’s Dance (from Bitches Brew)

Bob Dylan - Blind Willie McTell (from The Bootleg Series 1-3 Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991)

Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders and London Symphony Orchestra - Promises (has to be the whole album)

Cat Power - American Flag (from Moon Pix)

Daniel Blumberg - Madder (from Minus)

Baby Dee - When You Found Me (from Not Alone - Médecins sans frontières compilation)

(Swapped for ‘Small Song’ on playlist due to availability)

Vic Chesnutt - We Hovered With Short Wings (from At The Cut)

Dirty Three - Doris (from Cinder)

Heather Summers - Story of an Artist (from Covers from a Cabin)

(Swapped for the original Daniel Johnston on playlist due to availability)

Binker & Moses - Because Because (from Feeding The Machine)

Yes, I know there are 13 here!

Thanks Andrew!

Daisy Harcourt

From Mrs Dalloway to Jo Sweeting, Women & Word is a celebration of the lives of female writers and literary characters. Daisy Harcourt explores the unique discourse between artist and writer alongside a fascinating series of portraits featuring contemporary women, each sitter with a personal connection to the written and spoken word. 

We took a bit of time out to find out more….

Weald: What are you reading at the moment?

Daisy: John Craxton : A Life of Gifts by Ian Collins

Weald: Could you tell us a bit about the themes and subjects in your show?

The overarching theme of my show is female connection to literature; looking partly at formative experiences which have contributed to contemporary women’s love of words/writing/reading.
The experience of female writers and female literary characters is another theme in my show-  I’ve tried to interpret and express my own understanding of a selection of writers and fictional characters through drawing portraits of them.

Weald: The portraits have a lot of life and presence, yet their looks are not at all domineering; instead putting the viewer at ease. How did you develop this portraiture style?

Daisy: I have always drawn people in a way that I feel must be something to do with liking the person/sitter a lot - if I didn’t really admire them in some way I don’t think I could create the portraits you see.

Anne Elliot by Daisy Harcourt

Weald: What lead you to using pencil and ink as a medium?

Daisy: Working with pencil is something I’ve always done since I was a child. Latterly I discovered different types of ink, these are interesting and less predictable to use, the fluidity of mark making and texture creating contrast to the drawn line.


Weald : A bit of a taboo question now - what is your favourite portrait from the series and why?

Daisy: From the series?  I couldn’t possibly say!
From the show - ‘Mrs Dalloway’.
She is a favourite of mine for a number of reasons - the scale was new and challenging for me but I am happy with it; parts of the composition have different styles of working and ultimately I am pleased with the way they work together. Lastly I feel ‘Mrs Dalloway’ expresses a little of the character I imagine when I read Woolf’s novel.

Weald: What’s next on the horizon for you in terms of your practice?

Daisy: I am considering more portrait series and am keen to create larger scale works - I’m interested in creating portraits of underrepresented historical figures for public spaces.

Weald : Finally - what would be your 5 song studio soundtrack?

Daisy:

Moon in June - Soft Machine

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis - Vaughan Williams

Light Flight - Pentangle

The Zephyr Song - Red Hot Chilli Peppers 

Pictures Of You - The Cure

Info · Daisy Harcourt // Women and Word

Jasper Thims

Bognor based Jasper Thims is a highly skilled ceramicist, for this exhibition he presents a collection of uniquely hand built porcelain vessels.

We Caught up with Jasper in the lead up to our Mothshell Ambit exhibition!

Weald- Tell us about your relationship with ceramics and the inherent qualities you most value

Jasper - I think some of the most interesting qualities of clay lie in the experimental. I started quite young but what stuck with me was how clay can be influenced and changed to take on so many other properties, because in essence clay is a special blend of mud. The opportunities are endless, clay can easily exist from a liquid to a solid, you can play with its material qualities in any of those states and manipulate it in any way you see fit; as long as it comes out of the kiln at the end and doesn't explode (and or damage the kiln) you’re fine. From the material to the theoretical you have a rich tapestry of meanings and histories to play with, from ancient Jōmon ceramics to contemporary experimental forms and you don't even need to touch the history of ceramics if you don't want to. Through process and thought I feel I am bringing into being work that ever reaches towards fundamental meanings to me.

Weald - How much importance do you give to the light where you work?

Jasper - Personally I think the interplay between light and form is one of the most important tools I use when making. The meaning of the light isn't really important to me but how it can camouflage and obfuscate texture, shape, pattern or meaning is something I'm always considering when I'm making. Light is a tool, but there is a kind of uncertainty in the making process, in ceramics you know how the glaze might affect the texture or scale of a vessels surface but not necessarily how it will affect the object, similarly to how the form will shrink in firing, until it comes out of the kiln there's a kind of uncertainty I have to deal with.

Weald - What is your relationship to objects?

I think I'm a bit opinionated when it comes to objects we value, I’m not adverse to throwing away a lot of things and I rarely regret it, but I think there is a balance between significant objects and everything else. I don't like clutter and I'd hate to be utilitarian about the value of objects, I’ve learnt that objects should be authentic in some way to who you think you are. You don't need lots of things but the things you have should hold significance, they do not necessarily need to be positive, it could even be visceral negative in some way.

Weald - Do you create reference materials for yourself, photos, drawings etc or collect objects?

Jasper - When I'm out and about I'm often struck by spaces that are undergoing some form of liminality, something that exists in those spaces that are undergoing a kind of change, I end up taking photographs and collecting them for research. Rubble, rubbish, overgrowth, overuse or misuse, there is something in those photos that touch on the greater meaning I know I'm talking about.

I then take these images and translate them into drawings, the essential shapes, patterns, textures into monochrome drawings. From there I use them in the forms, though they are never used directly, they help draft an initial starting point and explore potential patterns and marks.

Alongside this I mainly collect tools to mark make on my forms, not for any solid meaning but when it comes to finding objects you look at things differently and consider how they'd mark when put into clay. I don't find inherent meaning in the tools I collect but by the very nature of the tools I am combining marks from disparate contexts and when combined onto the form they blur their meaning or origin. I think that it gives meaning to the tools paradoxically.

Weald - Do you have an idea of what you’d like to explore next?

Jasper - Recently I’m excited at the prospect of experimentation into additions of glaze material in clay bodies and then using said clayzeTM in the building of the forms to allow the material to embody a hands off kind of change. I want to allow the materials to have a kind of controlled yet uncontrolled chaos that only will be known to exist after the firings. Alongside this I am also looking into extrusions, making my own clay body and more kinds of mark making.

Weald - Do you prefer silence when you are working or do you listen to something?

Jasper - I love music but when I'm making work it can be very hit or miss, sometimes a bit intense. I can get a bit caught up in what it's saying and it distracts from what I'm trying to say. In the studio I often jump between Spotify and BBC Radio 6.

5 song studio soundtrack:

• Saudade - Ana Frango Eléctrico

• Dazies - Yuele

• Playboy/Positions - Shygirl

• Cyberia Lyr2 -Sewerslvt

• Hyper-ballad - Bjork (Orchestral)

Info · Mothshell Ambit - Jasper Thims

Daniella Norton

Daniella’s work is an exploration of the space between the different realities that we operate in and our perception of these situations. She uses abstraction and figuration to keep us off balance and our comfort zones challenged, the amorphous worlds and dream-like figures in the work are infused with a magical and somewhat fantastical, multi-dimensional quality. In the current Tree Root Goddess series Daniella sets out to reclaim depiction of female form, to give it a deeper more fully laden context of women’s lives and meaning and connotation that are largely unacknowledged in historical depictions of the female form.

We Caught up with Daniella in the lead up to our Mothshell Ambit exhibition!

Weald -    What is your process like, and what media do you use to influence your work if at all?

Daniella - I suppose my process is driven by my interests rather than being driven by materials initially, it swaps over later. I begin with an encounter, be that with an art object or an activity like walking. The encounter is a spark to connecting with interests. I am drawn to objects that link to the narrating of personal experiences. For instance, when I went to the Brancusi Studio in Paris I was struck by the sculptures, their depiction of sleep as I’m interested in the time we spend drifting in different levels of consciousness. The tree root goddess series perhaps not so obviously, is linked to this. I am interested in how these creatures exist in different physical form, and how this then suggests to me that there are many layers of consciousness and connectivity that might exist also. In creating these mythical tree root goddesses it has allowed me to journey beyond the rational to explore the representation of femininity. 

 Painting is a language, and I am always mindful of the medium itself, because of its long history it allows one to quote and reference and play like you might with the written word. It also has a three-dimensional aspect, the paintings are also objects and I enjoy treating the paint, even when thinly applied as an almost sculptural material. For this reason, I am less concerned with creating a verbatim image of something than the feeling that the paint is doing something. 

Weald -   How did you get to this process?

Daniella - I arrived at this process through a dissatisfaction with my previous attempts at making paintings. Except for the ones from the first year on my BA before painting became familiar. I realised that what excites me about painting is a feeling of going beyond what you know. My paintings often have an awkwardness about them, and I think this is because I am always trying to find a way of painting that is yet unknown to me. 

Weald -   What do you think of as the most important themes in your work?

Daniella - The most important themes in my work are probably connectivity (between nature and humans, animal and human, humans, and humans or hupeople), a relationship between physicality and the philosophical and feminism. 

Weald -  How has your practice evolved in recent years?

Daniella - My practice has benefitted from a few factors recently. I participated in the Turps Painting School Correspondence Course in 21/22, which was a valuable opportunity to receive feedback from mentors on my practice. Aside from that I am lucky to be part of an arts community in Brighton and it is the conversations and banter that really help shape my work and create an environment that is conducive to my practice. In addition to that there has been the Artist Support Pledge initiated by Matthew Burrows MBE, which has provided a supportive community that is based online and allows artists to connect globally. Art is a communicative activity in my view and it is as a result of these communities that my work has grown and developed. 

 Weald - Can you tell us how the Goddess series come about?

 Daniella - I was invited to participate in an exhibition ’the Goddesses’ at Terrace Gallery earlier in 2023 by artist curators Lucy Jagger and Angela Johnson. The premise of the exhibition was to foreground female and non-binary artists and support each other by including emergent and more established artists exhibiting together. This led me to connect with what Goddesses might mean to me personally. It was a walk through the woods near my house with these thoughts in the back of my mind that allowed me to encounter trees blown over in past storms and connect with them as creatures that had experienced life altering events and survived, growing new branches, and thriving in a new form. This was how the tree root goddess series began. I’m now looking at how the forms of the tree root goddesses might connect with Botticelli’s Venus and how Venus might respond to our current world. 

Weald - Lastly, please would you give us a 5 song studio soundtrack or podcast recommendation?

Daniella - My top podcast is To the studios by @davidauborn who is also an awesome painter. 

My current studio favourites for music are Joan as a Policewoman and Lucille Bogan.

Lucille Bogan was a fascinating woman, well worth reading up on as well as listening to her music.  

Info · Mothshell Ambit - Daniella Norton

Joseph Dilnot

Joseph Dilnot paints intuitively to explore layered subject matter creating a personal mythology and symbolism, in which imagined worlds, momentary insights and reflections on personal experiences are condensed into lyrical and enigmatic paintings. Growing up and living between the English Channel and the South Downs National Park, Dilnot draws great inspiration from the natural world. Spending long periods observing the micro life of insects and exploring the gentle and contemplative landscape of the South Downs, he draws on these observations and memories to depict uncanny, equivocal landscapes, often inhabited by wandering, solitary figures.

We Caught up with Joseph in the lead up to our Mothshell Ambit exhibition!

Weald  -   Earlier this year you were invited to take part in Creature Feature, a virtual group exhibition by mepaintsme; an exclusively online gallery. Can you tell us about the experience of exhibiting online?

Joseph - It was great, they have a very unique eye and I was honoured to be invited after being a fan for a long time. Exhibiting online was a brilliant experience with them, it allowed my pictures to reach a wide audience and was very positive. 

Weald -  Is there a specific environment or material that feels integral to your work at the moment?

Joseph - The most integral environment will always be where I live/work. I live in Eastbourne and my studio is at the bottom of a garden. Always being surrounded by nature, be it the South Downs or the pond by my studio I am always immersed in nature which is an important part of my subject matter. I have peace and time to really think about what I’m doing. It has its downsides living and working somewhere quiet but I’m not sure I could make my work in a city. 

Weald - Your work has real tenderness, can you tell us about your influences?

Joseph - Thank you! That’s a difficult one to answer. I was greatly impacted by going to see the 500 year anniversary exhibition of Hieronymus Bosch when I was 18/19, it was incredible. People were having to queue up to see the paintings! I also visited the Prado in Madrid last year and the background landscapes in Goya and Velazquez paintings sparked something within me, I still imagine myself walking in those distant landscapes. 

Weald - Are there overarching themes that return to your painting?

Joseph - I tend to return to solitary figures in unpeopled spaces. I’m interested in what that experience is, from moments of wonder and lightness to anxiety and self searching. 

Weald - What are you working on now?

Joseph - I have just got back from Cornwall where I spent time marching about in the countryside battling rain and wind! I’m going to try and channel some of those elemental landscapes and weather in my pictures. 

Paper Hat by Joseph Dilnot

Weald - Joe, can you give us a  5 song studio soundtrack :

Joeseph -

In no particular order…

-Beggar- Richard Dawson 

-The Lighthouse V (feat. Larla Ó Lionáird)- Colin Stetson

-Om Mani Padme Hum- Constance Demby

-Glass Chattering- Yoshio Ojima 

-Shadow in the Frame -Daniel Rossen

Info · Mothshell Ambit -Joseph Dilnot

Jennifer Davis

Jennifer Davis’s paintings explore the narrative between self and material, serving as a form of open-ended conversation. Jennifer explains “I consider myself to have a very personal approach to colour and gesture, working intuitively and using my instincts. Painting and drawing give me the platform to express this. Drawing and journaling throughout the years has informed the development of a personal language which translates directly into painting.”

We Caught up with Jennifer in the lead up to our Mothshell Ambit exhibition!

Weald - Can you tell us about the subject matter of the work included in Mothshell Ambit?

Jennifer - I want to tell stories in my work and capture imagined scenes. I’ve always felt the need to create images that hold notions of narrative and humour. In this way, a great deal of the subject matter is the process of painting itself, and how it allows for feelings and ideas to materialise through this transformation.

In the past year I became more interested in the idea of retelling and revisiting ideas from history and translating it through my own lens. I was looking at the idea of public executions and the parallels to modern day cancel culture, especially surrounding women’s experiences. Wanting to make a sort of satirical critique of this I began to include imagery in my work that simplified this idea.

Weald -Does symbolism play a part in your painting?

Jennifer - Yes, through a repetitive process characters emerge from a personal language that represent something, often giving it dual meanings. I like to keep these ambiguous and open for the viewer to interpret. Using text alongside becomes part of the process, helping to expand the narratives and alludes to the symbolic meanings.

 “A bell jar, holding possibilities of something precious, sacred, ready to be observed. But the contents were bare, the shelter cracked and deemed ‘irreparable’. A sense that something of beauty once occupied this space of illusionary protection”

Useless Bell-Jar

Weald - You were finishing your degree at Brighton University during the Covid pandemic, how did this affect how you produced work

Jennifer - During my final year of my BA I was working on a collection of work that had come from a series of drawings. They were interestingly already playing with themes of isolation and introspection. It was weird because it felt like these paintings had suddenly manifested into reality. In March we were told to pack up our things and take it all home. I attempted to set up a studio in my bedroom with tarpaulin. It was an absolute mess and I was using oil paints too so I was basically filling my room with fumes and felt myself going a bit crazy. I think it had an affect on the last few pieces of work made at this time as it was in a much more manic and uneasy state of mind. When finishing the degree I continued to draw on a daily basis in a journalistic manner. New motifs and language began to develop during this time, much of it being based around the collapse of self.

Weald - Could you tell us more about how you came to use mixed media & collage in your work?

Jennifer - finishing university, covid was still present, so I had to make do with making work from home (as I deferred a year of my MA due to a lack of studio.) This time it seemed impossible to work on a larger scale as I had moved house and there seemed no way around being able to work in oil paint. I reverted to using gouache on paper, it still gave me the freedom to mix colour and have some sense of fluidity. However unlike oil there was not much way I could work into the paint and build it up (which is common in my process). I found a lot of flaws in this as they seemed too rigid, so impulsively I began to cut them all up. I had piles of these pieces, scattered everywhere. It made sense to do something with them so I started to piece them together and they began to form new compositions and narratives. It was a playful process, and allowed me to experiment with the relation of space. I see these pieces as works in themselves, but they also informed future larger scale pieces.

 Weald - What are you working on at the moment?

Jennifer -I finished my MA last summer, and since then have found myself without a studio. I have returned to working at a smaller scale, using the same idea of mixed media and collage. I have been working on developing new language and motif within my work which will hopefully soon be able to take life on a much larger scale on canvas. Since finishing the Masters, I have continued to write and this is an area I would like to expand upon, interweaving aspects of social and individual commentary; the confessional and the fiction. Humour is at the forefront of my practice, so being able to express this in both the image and in words is something I want to continue to work on.

Weald - Please give us a 5 song studio soundtrack or podcast recommendation:

        Jennifer - always listen to music when in the studio and making work. Most of what I listen to is quite upbeat, and often dance tracks. It works best for me to throw myself into things with high energy and to have little distraction around me. Although every now and then I do need a softer song, often for when I’m reflecting.

•      Another Place - Dusky, Lucy Tun

•     Kammy (like i do) - Fred Again...

•    On the Run - Kelela

•     6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps

•    Staring at the Henry Moore - Aldous Harding

Info · Mothshell Ambit - Jennifer Davis