KUNSTHUIS Gallery, at Dutch House, Crayke, is showing work by four abstract painters, a brace of metal and stone sculptors, a ceramicist and a jewellery maker in its early autumn show, The Balance In Abstraction.
This exhibition of dramatic interpretations of abstract landscapes also features a student showcase by the gallery's selected York St John University Fine Arts graduate, Emma Denby.
The paintings' colours and textures evoke the wild and beautiful, resulting in vibrant and energetic pieces, By combining rich, bold colours and gestural marks, the works "decipher intuitive actions that explore the balance of planned and unpredicted, abstract and representational," says Kunsthuis Gallery's Clare Nattress.
Abstract painter Jill Campbell's work exposes the tension between trying to achieve detached observation while simultaneously engaging with the experience: looking and being; distance and closeness. Jude Sale's work is never intended to be a replica of what's out there but, rather, a compilation of found objects, colours, textures and sometimes texts chosen along the way.
Nicki Heenan focuses on links between the past and present, delving into her interests in the neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury, their passage through time and the relationship of the stones to each other and the landscape. Janine Baldwin's semi-abstract paintings employ gestural marks and evocative colours.
One of Marcus Steel's metal sculptures
Metal sculptor Marcus Steel's starting point is his interest in ancient and modern architectural styles and details from both industrial and vernacular sources. Jamie Gray, an American jewellery maker who lives in London, has an aesthetic rooted in striking colour combinations and a mix of non-traditional jewellery materials.
Kit Hemsley is influenced by coastal textures, colours and forms that are mirrored in his ceramics. Jason Clements works in stone, mostly limestone, using only hand tools, and the majority of his material is sourced from the quarry near Tadcaster that supplies the York Minster masons too.
York St John University graduate Emma Denby caught the eye of the Kunsthuis Gallery curators at her degree show with her work The Foramen. "Made from plaster, they function not only as aesthetically engaging sculpture, but as a platform to question their existence, both in terms of how they’ve come to exist through the physical act of making and also from wandering into the discourse of existence and ‘being’," says Clare.
The Balance In Abstraction exhibition will run at Kunsthuis Gallery, Dutch House, Mill Green, Farm, Crayke, near York, until October 30. Opening hours are 10am to 5pm, Wednesday to Sunday. The gallery has received a finalist nomination for the 2016 Arts & Culture White Rose Awards.
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