G drove me to Worcester yesterday to see the Worcester Open, an extremely varied and enjoyable exhibition. Unusually this exhibition is held in 3 venues, each with a distinct ethos and feel. The Art Gallery itself houses the largest pieces of the show, those chosen by the selectors. The artists in this show tend to come from farther afield and include Ian Gonczarow, who featured in the BBC4 series about Goldsmiths. So the pieces in this part of the exhibition tend to have that post modern, ironic approach, or the more punchy, urban approach made famous by the likes of Goldsmiths and the Saatchi collection. My favourite piece here was by Fiona Hughes, a window glazed with small blocks of wax and lit from behind. I thought this piece was not only beautiful to look at but witty and full of poetry. Also impressive were John Robinson’s monochrome paintings, and the huge van made of corrugated cardboard by Aaron Head.
The very helpful gallery assistant gave me a map and directed me to the Annex21, which is a small gallery within the Worcester Arts Workshop, just a short walking distance from the main Museum and Art Gallery. The pieces here were generally (but not entirely) smaller in size and tended to have a more craft based approach. These included an eerie and brilliantly crafted piece by Luke Harkus-Jeffries a large dolls house size model which you can peer into via windows or tiny portholes to see the rooms, but there's definitely something suspect and gruesome going on in the basement! I'd seen one of this artist's pieces before at Wolverhampton Art Gallery a couple of years ago, I think it may have been part of the West Midlands Open. Brilliant. I also liked the 3 small glass panels hung high up on the wall above the doll’s house by Lisa Sheppey, which were beautifully crafted and had the added bonus for me on including writing about a ghost! I also really liked the small dark ruralist style landscapes by Edward Clark, again slightly discordant in atmosphere, they reminded me of slightly askew 17th Century Dutch landscapes, they had a haunted quality about them.
The Pitt Studio Gallery lies about 5 minutes walk from the main art gallery in the opposite direction to town. This is the smallest venue of the 3, a tiny veranda literally crammed salon style with pieces, both paintings, sculptures, crafted pieces, prints and drawings. Again, although the pieces here tended to be small, this wasn't entirely so, a painting by Paula Woof hangs here (again there's the inclusion of writing in the form of fragments of handwriting on the wall) and there's a very impressive painting of a man in 17th century armour by Liz Smith. I liked the dark, fairtytale atmosphere of James Howarth's landscape ‘Where the wild things are’, with a small figure perhaps lost or maybe lurking in the forest. A beautifully crafted, enjoyable piece. The pieces in this gallery, as at Annex21, are displayed Salon style, and unusually for an open, include (either on display at present or in rotation) one piece from each of the artists who submitted work to the Open. The nicely produced catalogue of the show (pricey at £10 (£8 for participating artists) but produced in full colour) is titled 'meta - open' and contains an interesting and thought provoking essay on the process of submitting work to Opens. The exhibition's organiser, Nathaniel Pitt, intends this year's open to be a comment on this process, particularly the expense of showing artwork, or submitting artwork to be judged and possibly shown (or not). I was very lucky to meet Nathaniel at the Pitt Gallery, more of which I'll blog about tomorrow...
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