The latest exhibition from the award-winning Kellie Miller Arts Gallery, explores the ideas behind those pieces that emerge from dark to light.
“I have found that an idea can often appear to arrive from nowhere,” curator Kellie Miller explains. “Likewise, with the conception of an artwork, it can seem to come out of the dark, from the depths of our minds. Sometimes great works of art are created out of difficult circumstances or state of mind. All new projects for artists bring uncertainty and anxiety, until progress can be seen. What is wonderful is that they have the ability to work through these emotions and produce the results before their eyes. It is a cycle, battling to start, working through the dark and finally completing the project. And then the wheel moves around again. Everything has a beginning middle and an end.”
The artworks on show will be by Italian artist Davide Galbiati, UK artist Julie Allan and Canadian ceramicist Lesley Mcinally.
Davide Galbiati’s sculptures are created from blocks of wood or amorphous concrete. His pieces find the light by the transformation of the material to the artwork. The figures and forms have to surface from the depths of Davide’s mind to be born. This experience is typical for most artists working in the dark. His often-angelic figures appear to be reaching and moving towards the light.
Most of Lesley Mcinally’s beautiful vessels’ surfaces move from dark to light. Her use of texture and colour is like painting on pots, with the subject matter that most inspires her; landscape, weather and archaeology. Significantly with ceramics, the maker/artist never really knows what the end result will be until the final firing. She can have an idea from years of experience, however unlike painting or sculpture, the feedback isn’t instant, there is time in between each process and each decision. Many artists/makers using clay as their art form are working in the dark.
Julie Allan creates mixed media works on canvas, using oils, pencil, plaster and stitching, producing sumptuous and moody paintings that emerge from dark to light and back again. She has been working on a collection that reveals dark and light atmospheres. The themes within her works are mortality, sexuality and vulnerability of the human body.
See the exhibition at Kellie Miller Arts, 20 Market Street, The Lanes, Brighton, BN1 1HH, between 23rd February – 11th March 2019.
Address: 20 Market Street
Website: http://www.kelliemillerarts.com
Phone: 01273 329384
Opening Times: April to December Monday to Saturday 11-6, Sunday 11-5. Jan to April Tuesdays Open by appointment
