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 ANGELA WRIGHT - ARTIST
info:  angelawright.aw9@gmail.com

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ART INSTALLATIONS ... p1

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"NESTING" -  INSTALLATION IN A LONDON GROUP OPEN EXH  - 'COPELAND GALLERY', 133 COPELAND RD., LONDON, SE15 35N


 scrap-wires; yellow string; gold-paper; bought plastic egg sprayed with gold paint - plus its location
approx 43 x 40 x 23

8 to 26 Nov 2023

Thanks to: London group
Photos: David Carr-Smith; Angela Wright

"Nesting" is Angela's second* 'installation' intended to be commensurate with a mixed art exhibition - here the 'London Group Open' in the Copeland Gallery, Peckham.  This time the sculpture is 'submerged' in the only corner in the exhibition building's interior that has survived as a tangled muddle of accumulated cables, cable-supports, crumbling structural elements.  The nest with its gleaming egg was almost unnoticeable, looking out from its uniquely high and cluttered corner across a large volume of the exhibition that displayed a well arranged collection of individual art works, paintings, videos, assemblages, and plinthed sculptures.

[* ref: "Feeding Frenzy" below]

[Pic 1 below: is "Nesting" as an individual studio object. Pics 2 / 3 are its installation]

 

 

 

"NEST"  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL HERB GARDEN, LONDON,  SE1 9DAA


wire,  twine, paper, bought plastic egg sprayed with gold paint - plus its location
approx 90cm x 65cm

1 June 2023 to ---

Thanks to: Southwark Cathedral
Photos: David Carr-Smith

LINK: Making the work

The Nest is made from reflective wire with plastic gold eggs, installed in the main branch-junction of a huge plane-tree in Southwark Cathedral's E-end herb garden.  It can be viewed from the cathedral herb garden, the south-west pavement of London Bridge approach, from the restaurant between them (ref pic 3).

The installation should work as a visual/mental focus to an Interesting view consisting of Southwark Cathedral’s east facade; the cathedral herb garden, its adjacent restaurant. The pavement at this point - as an approach to London Bridge and City; as crossing place to the station; as an access to Borough Market - serves as the focus-point of the above complex view - it is effectively a balustraded viewing-terrace and the "Nest's" position in this fascinating and building-framed visual-field should catch attention, the Nest is the alien object in the view, it may sparkle in the sunshine and have an impact that conveys fun and joy ... and perhaps the idea of nest-building as something we all have in common will resonate.

 

 

 

"THE LIGHTS WENT OUT" -  4 WINDOWS OF THE SW BAY OF CHRIST'S CHAPEL, GALLERY RD., DULWICH, LON., SE 26


coloured transparent adhesive plastic
each lower window approx 48cm x 86cm

5 July to Oct 2022

Thanks to Alison Firth for enabling & assisting the dismounting of this work
Photos: David Carr-Smith & Angela Wright


Last Christmas I made a small window installation in my house consisting of carefully placed squares of coloured translucent adhesive film.  I started to experiment with light, noticing how the film's colours spread over nearby surfaces.

To take this work further I began to look for possible public sites, this led me to Christ’s Chapel where I met Alison Firth who has an enthusiasm for realising ideas. In this chapel I saw a visually impressive window made in memory of a father and beloved son killed in war - I enquired if I could make a work here about loss. I chose a set of plain-glass windows just inside the south door, flanked by lists of soldiers who lost their lives in the 1914 war.

My personal experience of bereavement was the loss of my Mother.  We shared a close relationship. She was gentle, sensitive, kind, with a huge sense of fun - someone who could make me cry with hysterical laughter.  She loved to tell stories of her life which I never tired of re-hearing.  She was wise and courageous in adversity, my confidante - I could tell her anything. She loved to sing and there was always a stash of licorice-allsorts in hiding.  After she died I 'closed down', I couldn’t bear to recall these experiences, it was as if the light had gone out of my life and it was only some time later that I was able to allow my memories to resurface and celebrate her.

 

 

 

"ALTERNATIVE STOPPING OFF PLACE" -  A FRONT GARDEN (NEXT TO 'MAYOW PARK') - RECREATION RD., LON., SE26


painted plastic flower-pot trays on bamboo canes supported by white-painted bricks
max height 244cm x  group length: approx 210 cm

6 May to Aug 2019

Photos: David Carr-Smith


A joke work driven by the idea of birds who (as if !) need a pausing perch before they finally take up a real residence in the adjoining tree-rich park. These utterly inappropriate perches: plastic plant-pot dishes precariously joined to the tips of vari-height canes anchored in white building-bricks and painted in 'garden' colours, are an ironic affront to the hopes of bird-fancying suburban gardeners.

 

 

 

"FEEDING FRENZY" -  USED AS AN INSTALLATION  - IN 1:  'A.P.T GALLERY' EXH. - 6 CREEKSIDE, LON., SE8 4SA;  IN 2:  LONDON GROUP EXH., 'CELLO FACTORY' - 34 CORNWALL RD., LON., SE1 8TJ


shredded art-group exhibition catalogue & market-stall tarp grippers
approx 56cm x 20cm x 5cm

Made approx 01-2018.  Used as an 'installation' in two exhibitions: 09-2018 (APT gallery) // 13-12-2019 (London Group - Cello Factory)

Thanks to: APT Gallery & London Group
Photos: David Carr-Smith

At first this was an isolated 'joke' piece: frantic fish contest the carcass of a catalogue in an exhibition ocean.  
Made from the shredded catalogue of a group art-show and a pair of market-stall canopy grippers it could be perceived (for instance) as an uncomfortably concentrated depiction of a now irresolvabl
y complex object (the catalogue) grasped and pulled-about by simplistic single-minded bullies.

It turned out however that this was a pre-existing work waiting for a role:
Angela was asked to contribute 'an installation’ to an APT art-group Exhibition and subsequently to a London Group show. She remarked: "My installations relate to their locations - an 'installation' is not only an ‘exhibit’ but a ‘holistic explanation’ of its surroundings. A group art show consists of the separate exhibits of individuals - each such work is an individually conceived and isolated object (their arrangement in a convenient location is a problem for an exhibition curator). An 'installation' however is resolved by and with its context - the context of the "Feeding-Frenzy" installation was the whole exhibition - my 'exhibit' was simply placed ‘somewhere’ (chance-chosen) on the exhibition’s floor - the most basic and indecisive position in its gallery-location …what did this ‘object’ say in this context ?"

Feeding Frenzy takes as its subject the dis-unifying conundrum of a mixed exhibition and presents itself as an added sculptural object in that show. However in its role as an 'installation' it is the only piece in that exhibition that relates to and expresses the whole show as subject-matter. It should (ideally) be placed 'anywhere' in such a show (like a pill swallowed into a stomach upset by a mixture of food ... it is not itself food - it has a calming and unifying action on the mix of food).

 

 

 

"GARDEN COCOON SPACE"  - SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL HERB-GARDEN, LONDON,  SE1 9DAA


twigs & garden-twine; plus existing stone-font & ruined walls, herb-garden & its location
dimensions: length 4.40m / width 3m / height 2.70m / font height 0.98m

1 Jun  to 2 Sep 2019 

Thanks to: Southwark Cathedral; Mark (gardener); Southwark Park (assistance)
Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith

The ‘Garden Cocoon Space’ for Southwark Cathedral’s herb garden is an installation which relates to its environment and may facilitate discussion of the experience of memory. For me it is a return to childhood when the family’s garden shed housed a wind-up record player and in the distinctive smell of wood and sunshine I shared special childrens conversations. This memory prequels the ‘Cocoon’ which aspires to be a protective enclosure that dilutes the surrounding hectic city. 

The ‘Cocoon’ is a visual focus for the sunken herb-garden and indeed for its whole visible location. It is the only example of an otherwise unrepresented type of practical building - conceived by someone as ignorant of building techniques as a child in a sandpit - a primitively personal hand-made architecture whose construction is reminiscent of ‘gothic’ forms and which thus ingenuously critiques the historicist stone Gothic that confronts it. Its pointed structure of twigs gathered from local parks and wedged between the stone remains of an ancient chapel spatially frames a stone font that reflects in its bowl images of the assertive buildings that surround it. Facing inwards it mirrors the glass point of the "Shard" and outwards the pointed bays of the cathedral's east facade.  

 

 

 

INSTALLATION  (GROUP EXHIBITION:  "PROTOCOL")  -  Q-PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1


white-painted bricks, red-painted dowels, red wool binding, red-chair, plus dark grey car-parking plot
parking plot dimensions: 3.80m x 2.25m


05 to 07 Oct 2018

Photos: David Carr-Smith


This exhibition of works of approx 115 artists, curated and titled "Protocol" by Vanya Balogh, was arranged on the lowest circular floor (-3) of the under-Cavendish-Square Q-Park. Each work was constrained by the stipulation that except for a single chair it must not extend outside the area of its dark-grey parking-rectangle. 

Angela's installation asserts as subject-matter this crucial protocol of limiting conditions that were imposed upon each artist  - by sitting outside the space it constrains this subject-matter may be comfortably contemplated in action.

 

 

 

"RESTING PLACE"  -  (GROUP EXHIBITION: "NOTHING ENDURES BUT CHANGE")  -  ST JOHNS CHURCH (GRAVEYARD), 73 WATERLOO RD., LONDON, SE1


tissue-paper & supporting trees, plus location 
dimensions: distance between trees approx 3.20m

05 to 25 Jun 2018

Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith


This work was a contribution to an exhibition of about 40 artists (curated and titled "Nothing Endures But Change" by Susan Haire, London Group president) located in the graveyard and park-like space that surrounds this Waterloo church.

Angela conceived this hammock as an evocation of childhood memories,
made from fragile tissue-paper which when plaited into 'ropes' became surprisingly strong and even survived the rain. 

The area to the south of the church is an undulating lawn edged with large trees. Along its west side, shielding it from the hectic street, is a small covert
threaded by a winding path and excluding beyond high railings the turmoil of Waterloo. In this tiny idyll, separated both from the art-show on the lawn and taunting with its tranquil respite the chaotic 'real-world' confined outside its bars Angela strung her knotted tissue hammock between two gnarled cork-oaks, placed in syncopation with the curving path and oddly glimpsed by passers-by like a 'graveyard ghost' among the trees.

 

 

 

"MEMORY INSTALLATION"  -  ST PETER DE BEAUVOIR CHURCH, NORTHCHURCH TERRACE, LONDON, N1


wire netting, donated objects, plus location
dimensions: each side approx 21m long

24 Apr 2018 to 27 Feb 2019

Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith


This (Easter) installation was made in conjunction with four workshops using 'Memory' as their theme. It presents objects lent by church attendees plus Angela and friends. These multifarious objects are trapped in backgrounds of wire along both nave walls.

Angela's addition hardly changes the building environment - entering the church it adds a vague complexity at the margins of the view - diverging from the chancel as if scattering fragments of its windows' colours into the body of the church. When however one approaches a wall, miscellaneous objects, trapped and flaunted in a turbulent stream of wire, become increasingly recognisable as a detritus of ordinary manufactured and naturally formed things. One's curiosity is aroused and one's attention focuses a single object, which stripped of its context of familiarity - of use and meaning that is extraneous to actuality - is awarded uniqueness and we see it as bizarre: a thing manifesting complex characteristics that are relatively undiluted by perceptions of its 'place and purpose in the world'.

 

 

 

INSTALLATION  (GROUP EXHIBITION: "EMBRACING THE UNDERDOG")  -  Q-PARK CHINATOWN  (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), NEWPORT PLACE, LONDON, W1


red satin, white paint & pva on newspapers - plus dark grey car-parking plot & its location
parking plot dimensions: 3.80m x 2.25m

18 Feb 2018 (1 day)

Photo: David Carr-Smith


This exhibition of approx 120 artists (curated and titled "Embracing The Underdog" by Susan Haire - London Group president) was arranged on three levels (-1/-2/-3) of this car-park under London's Chinatown. It was open for a single day - the first of the Chinese new Year of the Dog. 

Angela chose this parking-space for its complex of VIP-notice, barriered air-con inlet, drainage-pipe, which accompany the grey parking plot. This practical complex was thus forced into an awkward associational conversation with her added work. 
### - the work is ...

 

 

 

"CRASH BARRIER"  -  (GROUP EXHIBITION: "CRASH")  -  Q PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1


scissor-cut cardboard boxes, staples, string, plus location
dimensions: width approx 8m

06 to 08 Oct 2017

Photos: David Carr-Smith


This exhibition of works of approx 130 artists, curated and titled "Crash" by Vanya Balogh, was arranged on the lowest circular floor (-3) of the car-park that is buried under this central London square. 

Crash Barrier simply cut the circle of roadway and visually stalled and sieved the otherwise continually opening view. String-hung, it emphasised its ridiculous flimsiness by delicately touching the building's massive pillars. It related ironically to the traffic signs - under "No-Entry" it challenged the road with its blank cardboard stare, under "Straight Ahead" its face was print-imaged like a map-game. It was a joke-barrier that catered for fragile crashes.

 

 

 

"WATER MARKS"  -  RIVER DARENT,  WATER-MEADOW,  SHOREHAM,  KENT
 

sticks + site
dimensions: length approx 8m

invited by The London Group
17 June 2017 to winter 2017


Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright / [+ pic-4: thanks to an un-named photographer] 


Angela was invited to add to The London Group's 'Sculpture Trail' which involved many Shoreham Village gardens. She chose to install a work in one of the streams that flow through the idyllic park-like 'Water Meadow'. Her's was the work that least impacted on its site - the least noticeable commensurate with conserving an identity. 

The twigs were pushed into resistant gravel, from left to right along the moving stream, each was allowed to discover a posture supported by its neighbours ... 

It was as if the 'fence of twigs' collected commonplace phenomena: each twig made a tiny downstream bow-wave / the naked twigs sparkled in the summer sunshine / they captured tiny marching feet of yellow leaves, all right pointing / became decorated with webs (in mid-stream! - did spiders parachute from the overarching trees?) / and their reflections opened into deep inverted spaces muddled with glimpses of the sun-blotched stream-bed.

 

 

 

    BELLS  CELEBRATION  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON,  SE1 9DAA


wool + site
dimensions
: length approx 20m

Commissioned by Southwark Cathedral
09 Jan 2017

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Photos: Angela Wright  /  David Carr-Smith


The cathedral bells are reconditioned in a foundry at intervals of approx 100 years. This was an occasion that celebrated their return. Eight of the twelve bells were lined up in the nave (three were too large to move there and two were 'special', requiring separate ritual treatment). I was asked to devise a setting to enhance the presence of the nave bells which were to be the focus of a ceremony. 

 

 

 

"FRYST" ("FROZEN") INSTALLATION  -  GALLERY DEIGLAN,  KAUPVANGSSTRAETI,  AKUREYRI,  ICELAND


[performance-space]  furniture; white wool; pebbles; newspapers; plastic; store-cupboard finds; studio objects, art-works, sketches  /  [seating-stair]  polythene dust-sheets
  
25 to 27 Jun 2016

Photos: Angela Wright

This installation was made in the Deiglan Gallery, a cultural-events hall that opens from the street into a single transverse theatre-like space. From left to right across its entry area a prosceniumed stage-like space faces a huge wedge of stair serving as a tier of audience-seating, which at its far top corner accesses the studio/living-place of the Akureyri Gil-Society's 'artist in residence'. 

Angela's installation was two physically/visually separate but mentally related parts ("Fryst" (frozen) is their combined title): a staged studio that replicated (and transformed and froze) aspects of Angela's work-place of the preceding 24 days of her residency, and a transformation of its giant facing 'stair' into a model cascade of frozen 'water'.  

"On day one of the residency I discovered I could enter the Deiglan Gallery via an interconnecting door which is accessible from my studio. It was strangely exciting to go through the rather stiff and heavy door, a bit like Alice in Wonderland ! - I entered a space which immediately called to me to walk down its steep flight of large wooden steps! - I felt an immediate connection with those steps, and I have been working on installation ideas for this particular space ever since.

In the preparatory stages of an installation I make lots of sketches and try-outs - some more developed than others, some complete works in their own right - until finally I arrive at a point where I know where I am going, with conviction."  

Objects that are thoroughly embedded in our world of useful familiar things were forced to relate and participate with objects that had emerged from another part of the mind, one that is normally non-objectified. These latter objects do not evoke a familiarity of recognised use, but induce a need for justification via associational metaphors. The depicted situations have become somewhat unsettling and weird, not least because the participation of objects that ‘mean nothing obvious’ in these tableaux of the 'normal', is seemingly so deliberately arranged. 

 

 

 

STAIR PICTURE  -  DANIELLE SALAMON HOUSE, LONDON


wool 'tops' sandwiched in glass 'clip-frames'

01 Feb 2016
to --- current

Photo: David Carr-Smith

 

 

 

"PLOT -3 136"  -  (GROUP EXHIBITION: "SILENT MOVIES")  -  Q PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1


discarded black garments and black felt 'flowers', on black car-parking plot (-3 136)

parking plot dimensions: approx 3.80m x 2.25m


16 to 18 Oct 2015

Photos: Angela Wright  /  David Carr-Smith

LINK: Making the work


This exhibition of around 100 artists was arranged on the lowest circular floor (-3) of the car-park under this central London gardened-square. The curator (Vanya Balogh) specified that works must be grayscale - this ensured they were not perceived as separate from their almost achromatic location (which was thus not demoted to mere background exhibition space). Consequently this extraordinary location added its unique experiential characteristics to the exhibition: a sense of the unspecified depth of this accumulation of art, isolated from memory of an outside, deeply sunk underneath the busyness of streets; the sense of a secret vault enhanced by the claustrophobic compression of the low space; the endless circling of the curving view without clear locational clues or rememberable exits ... always only able to apprehend a segment, ones communion with immediate exhibits was made special by repeated discovery and loss around the curving road.

Around the outer and inner edges of the circular car-park floors were precise slightly shiny black rectangular parking-plots, contrasting with the pale grey concrete and displaying their stark white numbers. A few, tucked into occasional structurally awkward spaces, were skewed parallelograms. I chose the most tense of these distorted rectangles as the base of my work. 

The black 'flowers' for "Silent Movies" were made from many items of black clothing and over 1000 felt ribbons. The use of black challenged me - its heaviness and association with funerals were almost prohibitive in a year of distressing losses. It was important to relate to the location and I found the restrictions, for instance the curatorial imposition of black or white; the unalterable tube light at the front of my work which plunged its rear into darkness; the skewed shape of my chosen plot, all extremely interesting - as a result things happened within the work which I could not have foreseen. 

My work is very much about placing and I worked in situ on "Plot" for nine hours without stopping - I think this intensity and exactness could be experienced by its viewers. The work provoked conversation, it was likened to Baudelaire's 'flowers of evil'; to charcoal; to a fantastic magnification of the granular surface of the car plot itself; to a grave; to a submerging depth. My partner likened my abandoned clothes to temporarily abandoned cars: without their purpose both these body-shells become anomalous. 

 

 

 

"ONCE OUT OF NATURE"  -  RURAL SITES & HARTS LANE STUDIOS, NEW CROSS GATE, LONDON, SE14


garments, canes, locations
, activity 
In cooperation with Julian Wright

16 Dec 2014  to 14 Feb 2015

Photos: Angela Wright  / Videos: Julian Wright

LINK: Making the work (videos: Julian Wright & Angela Wright)


The results of this collaboration between Angela Wright and photographer/video-maker Julian Wright were presented in Harts Lane Studios. The exhibition was the culmination of four days of work on two contrasting rural sites near Leigh-On-Sea, Essex - the first on the tidal mud of the Thames estuary and the second on fields overlooking the estuary below Hadleigh Castle.

 

 

 

STAIR INSTALLATION AT FLEMING COLLECTION  -  13 BERKELEY ST, LONDON, W1
 http://flemingcollection.com/


hand-wound wool balls, plus site

Commissioned by the Fleming Collection
6 Jan 2015  to 14 Feb 2015


Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct and Adam Curtis of Real Shetland Co - for the wool
Photos: David Carr-Smith


This work was commissioned for the staircase of the Fleming Collection, with the intention that it should 'connect' the street-level gallery with the first floor exhibition space and relate to what is concurrently displayed there: the 'Large Tree Group Tapestry' [see last pic]. In reference to this tapestry I chose naturally coloured wool ranging from grey, through cream to chocolate brown. The installation is made of numerous hand-rolled balls of this undyed-wool - small varicoloured ones (whose making was assisted by volunteers) and large cream ones. The small balls form a flat circular wall 'picture' that both focuses one's destination and relates to the circular cut outs of the balustrades plugged with the larger balls of cream wool that rhythmically pace one's ascent. While this wall piece and balustrade intervention soften the hard lines of their practical and severe environment, they are also in acute positional tension with features of the stair, most obviously with the two circular landing-lamps and the wooden newel-post balls.

 

 

 

"WOOL WALK" INSTALLATION  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA


seven wool hanks (two natural white / five color dyed), plus site
dimensions (approx): hank length: 30.5m /
installation length: 23m

Commissioned by the Wool Marketing Board
5 to 12 Oct 2014

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct and Adam Curtis of Real Shetland Co - for the wool
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright


This overhead wool installation in Southwark Cathedral's "Lancelot's Link" passage acts as a guide towards the Campaign For Wool "Interiors Collection" [see last pic]. The installation is a very straightforward introduction to the elaborate objects displayed in that temporary exhibition. Its coloured hanks, as if hung up to dry, are simply dragged over the support wires, they are even still tied in their wool bands - it signifies: 'this is how the wool arrives, and these [objects in the exhibition] are what these long simple hanks can become'. Angela said "I think the installation has a job to do and does it well - here, in this introductory role
, the wool is not completely subject to skillful control, its hanks inevitably jostle for position, their colours shifting in dominance along its length. I enjoy the way it illustrates the 'provisional' like an in-process painting". The whole thing is rhythmical, the V-shaped wires march down the length and the wool seems to slither from wire to wire, hanging off at the ends as if it wants to reach the floor. It's quite disconcerting overhead, somewhat 'too alive' - much 'faster' than the slow architecture of the passage.

 

 

 

"40 DAYS"  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA
http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org
 
wool yarn, plus site (reredos, altar, chancel)
dimensions: hank approx 25m / reredos 15.3m

Commissioned by Southwark Cathedral
05 Mar to 18 Apr 2014


Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son Ltd - for blending and spinning the wool
Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith / Julian Wright


This installation consists of large hanks of wool hanging from the apex of the 15.2m high altar reredos, covering the central gilded figures of Jesus. It partners "another hour", an installation by Edmund de Waal in the retro-choir beyond the reredos. 
(The work combines the two wool hanks given by Martin Curtis: the original used in the first wool installation in "Wallspace" 2009 and the '40 countries' wool hank used in the London, Sydney, Shanghai, Soeul exhibitions [see below].)

JULIAN WRIGHT                                                                           
                                         
JULIAN WRIGHT                         

 

 

 

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 6)  -  WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION,  ARA  ART CENTRE,  INSA-DONG,  SOEUL,  S KOREA
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
18 to 25 Nov 201
3

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son Ltd - for blending and spinning the wool
Photos: Angela Wright


This fourth 'derivative' from the original Wool Installations. Based on a hank made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site: the top level of the Ara Art Centre, Seoul, as part of an exhibition of wool-based design products, the fifth and last such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

 

 

 

"UNWANTED"  -  ST. LUKE'S CHURCH,  64 OLD SHOREHAM ROAD,  BRIGHTON,  SUSSEX,  BN1 5DD
 
unwanted items donated by the congregation + Angela's unwanted plastic twine + satin-fabric donated by the church
dimensions (approx): h: 1.6m / w: 3.3m

8 to 26 May 2013


Photos:
David Carr-Smith


I came to St Luke's to make an installation not knowing what I would find. I had asked if the congregation would donate unwanted objects - I had in mind unwanted presents and things we buy two of by mistake. 'Unwanted' has a poignancy that extends beyond mere objects to people - it served my wish that the work should provoke emotions. I needed to know what was hidden in the several cardboard boxes of donations. Coincidently they included a three-tiered fruit-stand which (influenced by the fact that a circular chandelier once hung from the east end roof) was raised like an offering and became my installation's central suspended 'mandorla-source'. Through this many meters of twine were threaded, a wriggling cascade that spread and connected the miscellaneous objects. It was my wish to elevate the status of all these unwanted things, to make them viable, desirable and freshly needed. Placed on rich satin fabric they became like jewelry in a display box, gorgeous sweets, or weird variegated fungi inter-connected by a mycelium of white twine life-lines.

 

 

 

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 5)  -  WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION,  BUND 18 GALLERY,  THE BUND,  ZHONGSHAN E ROAD,  SHANGHAI, CHINA
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
22 to 28 Oct 2012


Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool

Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son - for blending and spinning the wool

Photos: Angela Wright
& David Carr-Smith


This third 'derivative' from the original Wool Installations. Based on a hank made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the Bund 18 Gallery Shanghai [exterior pic below], as part of an exhibition of wool-based design objects, mainly fashion. The fourth such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

 

 

 

"LEAF BALL"  -  DULWICH PARK (WEST ENTRY GATE LODGE),  COLLEGE ROAD,  LONDON,  SE21
 
green-waste prunings & gardening twine plus site

15 Oct 2012 to 15 Mar 2013


Photos:
David Carr-Smith
/ Angela Wright

LINK: Making and installing the work


The "Leaf-Ball" was initially made for the Gate-Lodge lawn of Dulwich Park's College Road entry lodge. It utilised seasonal shrub prunings provided by the Park's head gardener; which were incorporated as received onto the growing ball. The resulting surface changed in colour and structure each time new materials were added. It was first worked in a studio then in situ in the Park, where its changes of appearance and increasing size attracted the attention of the frequent local visitors. 

Two stages of the work are shown below.

 

 

 

"SHARED POSSESSION"  -  WAREHOUSE,  55 GREAT SUFFOLK STREET,  LONDON,  SE1
 
flour plus site

4 to 6 July 2012

Thanks to: "Guerilla Architects" http://www.hiddenborough.org
Photos: Angela
Wright


This empty early 19th century warehouse has a curious ownership problem which has prevented its redevelopment: the local council has claim to a 2½m portion of its north end that intrudes beyond the general line of its flanking road's south edge. Internally the ambiguity of this portion of the building is not discernable - Angela however (motivated by the potential loss of this part of its space with its two-century accumulation of traces) for the first time in its history made it briefly so. On level two (the least obstructed) she rapidly demarcated the contested area by sieving flour - covering its massive wood in a uniform surface of clean white. By hiding the floor's colour this snowy surface revealed its 'landscape' of physical abrasions, and offered an inexhaustible field of food for mice.

 

 

 

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 4)  -   WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION,  PIER 2/3,  HICKSON ROAD,  WALSH BAY,  SYDNEY,  AUSTRALIA
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
25 Apr to 1 May 2012


Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool

Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son - for blending and spinning the wool

Photos: Angela
Wright


The second 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations.  It is based on a hank made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the Pier 2/3 gallery as part of an exhibition of wool-based design products, the third such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

This version of the wool piece is in an extremely different location than the conventional art gallery in London - this was a dramatically 'primitive' and unadorned pier, whose vast plank floor roofs the harbour's sloshing water and whose high-set strip of windows, set over huge loading doors, admitted shafts of violent sunlight across its surface ...

I decided to turn the work's 'back' to the main central space and the strong afternoon sun, while its arms flowed into the unencumbered 'aisle' side space ...

 

 

 

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 3)  -  "WOOL MODERN" EXHIBITION,  LA GALLERIA,  PALL MALL,  LONDON, SW1
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
7 to 29 Sep 2011
Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son - for blending and spinning the wool
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: Julian Wright / David Carr-Smith / Angela
Wright


A 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations. A hank of wool made (as were the others) by laying down yarn drawn from several cones. This time however the yarn was spun from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the gallery as a contribution to an exhibition of wool-based design products, which constitute
d the opening event in a world campaign by the wool industry.

 

 

 

"189 MILES" WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 2)  -  BRADFORD CATHEDRAL,  1 STOTT HILL,  BRADFORD
 
wool yarn and rope plus site

22 May to 26 June 2010

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for providing the wool
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright


My first "189 Miles" Wool Installation was made in April 2009 in an 18th century London church - All Hallows on the Wall. This new version (but made with the same hank) is in the 15th/19th/20th centuries Bradford Cathedral - at the centre of (what remains of) the wool industry. During its London installation I was often asked "where will the wool go next" I always replied that "I want to take it back to Bradford to the home of my wool sponsors". 

I visited the Cathedral and was immediately drawn to the Peace Chapel, it had a special feeling for me, a sense of an island - a safe place. I wanted to add to this Chapel a work that had calmness, stillness, serenity and beauty, combined with a sense of Bradford's history. The wool's softness, warmth and smell spans lifetimes from infancy to old age. In the Chapel is Charles Kempe's Crucifixion window - it became important that the centrally suspended wool hank would also reveal like a portal its central image of a crucified Christ.

 

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"189 MILES" WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 1)  -  "WALLSPACE",  ALL HALLOWS CHURCH,  83 LONDON WALL,  LONDON,  EC2
 http://www.wallspace.org.uk/about.html

wool yarn and rope plus site
dimensions (approx): h: 7m / w: 15m

18 Mar to 13 Apr 2009

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for giving the wool 
Patrick Sweeney and Clive Burton - technical consultants 

Photos: Julian Wright / David Carr-Smith

LINK: Making the work


When I first visited All Hallows church I was struck by the soft creamy colour of the ceiling and its flower-like patterns - suggestive of the qualities of undyed wool. I went away with the thought of making a work that connects the ceiling to the floor. Coincidentally the installation was timed to coincide with Easter.

A huge quantity of wool was given me by two generous Yorkshire sponsors: Martin Curtis and Andrew Marshall. Martin Curtis told me the average sheep produces around 2 kilos, which when washed loses a third of its weight in grease and dirt. I was thus given - in washed and spun wool the approximate equivalent of 55 fleeces!

The hank of wool that constitutes the bulk of the work was formed over five weeks by laying down parallel threads pulled off wool-wound cones. This 25 meter long, 75 kilo trunk-like mass was hauled up and suspended over the nave by its centre, falling in two 'cascades' that part in a 'doorway' and flood out across the floor. The uncompromising cross of tense rope and knots that bind the giant hank's centre, contrasts with the relaxing and complexifying of the released wool, spreading like the foam and streamlets of a beaching wave.

PHOTO: JULIAN WRIGHT                                               
 
PHOTO: MARCO PEREIRA                                                           

 

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"PAPER WINDOWS"  -  A GROUP EXHIBITION,  INNOVATION GALLERY,  CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS INNOVATION,  PROCTER STREET,  LONDON,  WC1

paper with pencil and scalpel drawing

9 to 18 Dec 2008

Photos: David Carr-Smith


The work reproduced the gallery windows in artists' paper. Tests began in Sep 2008 and I started making the work in Nov 2008.

Half the gallery is windows - so demanding of wall that they limited hanging to small images on the room's cluttered inner sides. Seventeen window panels bracket the space - a procession of fourteen 3-row panels whose inner ends slow to a stop via panels of 2. 

After the cement-blinded windows of the "Powerhouse" exterior, these gridded walls of translucent glass presented another type and degree of enclosure and obscurification.
The big pool of dark floor offered a space to reflect them. I drew the 17 window-grids with pencil and scalpel at 1:1 scale on artists' paper and layered them on the floor like a fallen homage - only their leaved edges showed their number. The twin 2-row "misfit" grids were flung 'randomly' across the "standard" 3-row stack. The excised paper 'panes' had curled themselves into tubes which huddled near the reclining grids, pining for rôle and positions.

 

     

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."POWER HOUSE"  -  INSTALLATION ON STREET FACADES,  R.K.BURT ARTISTS' PAPER WAREHOUSE,  UNION STREET,  LONDON, SE1 

site plus cable-hung 'blinds' of PVC-polyester with "Grafisoft" adhesive-vinyl drawings
dimensions: x3 blinds = h: 6.4m / w: 2m // x1 blind = h: 6.4m / w: 2.4m // x1 blind = h: 3.8m / w: 4.58m
Initially a public-site installation for the London Festival of Architecture 2008

28 June 2008 to 20 Jan 2009 / 28 June 2009 to 3 Sept 2009

Thanks to:  R.K. Burt & Co Ltd., Wholesale Paper Merchants, 57 Union Street, London SE1 1SG - for loan of building facades 
Siddons Van & Car Hire, 191D Perry Vale, SE23 - for logistical assistance 
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Gary Black

LINK: Making and installing the work


In late 2007 I discovered this Union Street 1930’s ex electricity sub station, now  R. K. Burt artists' paper warehouse. The blinded rendered windows of this somber building reminded me of canvases waiting to be painted. The windows had probably been blocked at the beginning of the war, the spaces they once occupied are clearly defined.

I chose to install blinds for these blind windows. These blinds relate to several aspects of the building, most importantly they have an energy which will transform it. The 5 panels are a rhythmical sequence: 4 tall ones on the main façade - the first wider, the next 3 a repeated beat; then around the corner facing east, the 5th - squarer, placed high up, ‘floating’ - provides a full stop. The blinds connect with the building’s past through colours associated with electricity, live wires and cables - the sub station previously humming inside is evoked on the outside. They also express an affinity with the ghosts of its window mullions. Finally, in their role as drawings they refer to the building’s present use by artists’ paper merchants.

 

The building is situated close to several derelict houses encased in scaffolding, despite this there is a feeling of a village at this end of Union Street - the road splits in two as it approaches Southwark Bridge Road and the remaining island has a large spreading plane tree, café, outdoor seating, while overhead the trains trundle past. I wanted to add something dynamic to this end of the street, something that speaks of summertime!

 

     

               

               
                
                
                
PHOTO: GARY BLACK                   
               

 


 

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