joseph scissorhands: September 2021

Sunday, 26 September 2021

Angus Hyland & Marion Deuchars: Looking for a certain ratio

"Inside nearly every graphic designer and illustrator is an artist demanding to be set free." - Adrian Shaughnessy.

14 Cavendish Square

I never thought that I would have another opportunity to freely roam the interior of 14 Cavendish Square again, let alone so soon after my last visit earlier this year (here), but once more I found myself in this lovely Grade II listed Palladian-style mansion in the heart of London nestled behind Oxford Street. The occasion was for a series of installations as part of the London Design Festival 2021. As a former illustrator the installation I was most eager to see was - Angus Hyland & Marion Deuchars: Looking for a certain ratio. It didn't disappoint. Both Hyland and Deuchars tread the balance between commercial work led by clients and the need to pay bills, versus that of fuelled by their own needs to create personal experimental artwork. I was impressed by Hyland's paintings - all geometric shapes forming sharp, intersecting angles creating dynamic tensions and relationships within the picture plane. They have a mid-century aesthetic, with a flat, graphic style created by smooth, unvarying layers of paint. At first glance I thought they were paper collages or screenprints because of their untextured surface. I enjoyed the sense of shape and pattern created by these geometries as they are similar in some ways to a new series of my own entitled Dazzle that I have been working on of late. Marion Deuchars' work here is really interesting too as it seems so different in spirit to the typographical and illustrative work for which she more well known. These works consisted of found pebbles and sea glass onto which she has imposed a series of markings resembling runes, constellations, glyphs, letters and symbols which appear to communicate coded messages in an arcane language like the earliest cave paintings of our ancestors. Many of the events and installations of the London Design Festival seem to be a lot of style over any real substance. This show was different. The pedigrees of both Hyland and Deuchars situated in this historic venue though made for a really engaging display as part of the LDF roster.

Angus Hyland & Marion Deuchars: Looking for a certain ratio

Design House/London Design Festival 2021

until 26th September

14 Cavendish Square

London

Sunday, 19 September 2021

Anna Ray: On Tenterhooks

Anna Ray - Capture, (detail)

"I'm interested in rhythm, symmetry, patterns that expand and contract. A lot of my work isn't fixed and it might be arranged in another way in a different space. It has a vulnerability in that way, although the finessing is important as well." - Anna Ray. .

Capture

As mentioned in my last post it has been a good year for exhibitions of textile art in London. Whereas that post dealt with textiles used in a practical context, this features textiles produced in an art context. It is an issue I've focused on previously earlier in the year (here, and here) and this show continues the trend. The exhibition is set across two sites in the City and features the large, very architectural/sculptural textiles of Anna Ray full of strong shape and vibrant colour. The exhibition takes its title from the hooked nails found on wooden frames used as far back as the 14th C. to dry woollen cloth. The expression "on tenterhooks" is also used to mean being in a state of nervous unease, anxiety or suspense - a state the whole world has been in since the lockdowns due to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic. Ray actually created many of the artworks installed here during last year's first lockdown. Inspiration came from this particular area of London, famed for its historic associations with the textile industry with streets named after aspects of the industry such as Fashion Street, Tenter Street, and Threadneedle Street. There is also familial connection for Ray as her ancestors were Hugenot refugees, weavers and textile workers who settled in the East end in the 18th century and were employed in the textile industry there. Ray incorporates a variety of textile processes in her art - wrapping, weaving, painting, stitching, staining and sewing, working intuitively, not always knowing what the outcome of a piece will be. The artworks produced are versatile and be be piled on the floor to occupy space like a sculpture (Margate Knot), or adapted to be wall-mounted (Stripe, and Bloom). The works at Aldgate Tower are created from the tufted carpet top samples, gathered from a carpet weaving company. Ray rescued the off-cuts and tangled thread leftovers which she recovered and then reconfigured to create new artworks. These are playful, sculptural, art-textiles with similarities to those of Sheila Hicks also seen very recently here in this blog. Disappointingly, visitors to the Aldgate Tower venue of this exhibition should be advised that not all artworks there are accessible to the general public. Certain artworks remain tantalisingly out of reach behind barriers available only for staff to view due to the security concerns of the building.