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| Cascade by Tim Robottom/medium: found objects |
In the Elizabethan Garden, Stephen Charlton, Bronze winner at the
2008 Chelsea Flower Show sculpture award, will be presenting a series of mischievous
resin mice. As well as the artist’s desire to entertain and bring a smile to
the face of the audience, the works are
inspired by childhood and nature. The mice are frozen in a moment in time,
encapsulating the wonder of imagination in a child’s eyes, when encountering something
dreamlike and magical.
Martin Johnson from Coventry, artist,
lecturer and Senior Concept Visualiser for Blitz Games, will be presenting a
series of imaginative paintings that intertwine graphic novel-style with
traditional techniques and a playful use of composition, colour and shadow. Johnson’s
works have an almost timeless quality, where the historical landmarks, costumes
and settings are familiar, but at the same time sinister, creating the
sensation of a window into an alternate past or a possible future. During the exhibition the artist will also be
creating a work onsite.
Bryn Lloyd-Evans, a Kenilworth resident and one of the youngest artists
in the show, will be presenting an interesting, site-specific work. The piece
takes a processed building material and re-presents it in a form that is
similar to its original natural state. In doing so, the work highlights the
techniques used to make the hand carved blocks in the construction of the castle
walls. The use of plaster, whose main compound is gypsum, a mineral extracted from ‘New Red Sandstone’, directly refers to
the castle, emphasising the laborious and colossal task that was undertaken to
create the castles distinctive walls.
Concetta Modica from Milan, Italy, will be presenting a piece that
relates to her own personal history and that of her homeland. What initially might
appear to be merely an embroidered flower and a pile of sea salt has a wealth
of meanings: the flower is made of the wool that came from the artists wedding
trousseau, embroidered by her grandmother. A Finnish woman from the town of
Rauma, then embroidered a flower using some of the same yarn. In this manner,
material from Southern Europe was given a form in the North. In turn, the salt
represents the salt planes of Trapani, where her grandmother was born, and the
snowy lands of the Northern hemisphere. In a juxtaposition of opposites, the
work references tradition, heritage, and the merging of different cultures,
where boundaries become confused and local traditions are exchanged.
Luke Perry, Chief Artist and Director of Industrial Heritage Stronghold and co-presenter of the prime time Channel 4 television series Titanic: The Mission, will be presenting a video piece, which contains historical footage of shipyard workers, one of whom was the artist’s own grandfather. Black Country born and bred, this talented artist, who is also an engineer, an Industrial Historian, consultant and visiting lecturer, has fabricated a variety of large scale public artworks and, in the early part of his career, also worked as a documentary film maker, winning the Bronze medal for short film at the London International Short Film Festival.
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| Grampa by Tim Robottom |
BRINK Co Founder, Tim Robottom, will be presenting an
interesting series of clever works. The first Grampa and Nanny, is a poignant
and touching kinetic piece consisting of walking sticks (the
legs) and shoes (the feet) that are seen walking gangly in mid-air, intimating
that even though their lives are over their journey continues within the minds
and hearts of those who knew them, and possibly even in the hereafter.
In Napoleon’s Plan, an unlikely host of
animals are engaged in a game of chess, but not any game of chess, for they are
positioned in the ‘Napoleon’s Opening’, a strategy often employed to trick
inexperienced chess players. The work itself, is an allegory of the bellicose nature
of mankind and the animal kingdom’s struggle in the face of man’s actions.. “It
is also a nod to Duchamp’s retreat away from making art, preferring chess for
twenty years, playing in the parks of New York. This impressive piece has been
kindly sponsored by two Kenilworth-based companies: A World of Ceramic
Tiles and Build Base.
Constructed entirely from discarded, coloured plastic
objects, Cascade is an installational
assemblage that takes the form of a spiral. The symbolism and the materials used,
both relate to the passing of time, our everyday lives and the value of
resources; the spiral, whilst alluding to genetics and the helix, also mirrors
the many spiral stairways in the castle.
Suminder Virk, who was born in India and currently lives and works in Leamington,
will be presenting Downward Spiral, an
impressive and fascinating piece, which consists of a double bed with a
transparent mattress, mirror and coils. But this is no ordinary bed: you can’t
lie on it, it’s far too fragile, the inner structure is exposed and the
mattress coils have been meticulously wrapped in angry scarlet thread, possibly
alluding to time, pain, sacrifice and reflection. The artist, whose work is strongly
influenced by her domestic life and fascination for fabrics and textile
that stems from her Indian background, has exhibited on both a national and
international scale.
Throughout the nine-day event,
there will be surprise performances, installations, live painting and
sculpting.
The exhibition is open
during normal castle opening times from 10.00am-5.00pm.
Castle admission fee
applies, please see the English heritage website for further information:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/kenilworth-castle/visitor-information
