You can tell when Spring is turning into Summer: sculptures emerge from art galleries to take their rightful place in the great outdoors – often in the most cared for and beautiful gardens.
Next month West Lavington Manor hosts Friends of the Garden’s major exhibition of contemporary sculpture which will include the work of five Wiltshire artists. The exhibition’s signature sculpture is Paul Vanstone’s Two Heads.
Other artists, many of whom sell their work internationally, come from across England. The Wiltshire artists are Celia Smith, Jeff Pigott, Olivia Clifton-Bligh, Anthony Rogers and Lucy Strachan.
The theme for the exhibition is ‘Moods of Summers 1914 – 2014’ and visitors will see a wide range of imaginative responses to this brief.
Jeff Pigot has made a new work inspired by the sound of gunfire on Salisbury Plain which he can hear in his studio. The painting shown here is one he made during the development of his ideas for this exhibition .
Jeff who graduated in 2013 with a BA in Fine Art with Drawing from Swindon College and Oxford Brookes University, says: ‘My work is characterised by a spirit of experimentation and exploration of both materials and the process of making art.’
His works use a wide range of materials. Some of his current work is made of paper while other pieces are made from concrete.
Visitors will be introduced to the First World War commemoration theme by a series of banners lining the manor’s drive. These have been painted by the local youth club and each one depicts a decade during the hundred years since the ‘Great War’ began.
The British-American sculptor Suzanne Redstone is exhibiting a partly completed carved stone sculpture which when finished will incorporate lines made by the rays from the sun in her Devon studio on the date and time of both the outbreak of the First World war and the coming of peace.
This is Friends of the Garden’s fourth biannual exhibition. They are a voluntary organisation committed to showing the work of emerging and leading contemporary sculptors in a garden setting.
Works in the exhibition are for sale. There is also a shop with modestly priced works by over forty artists which will be for immediate sale.
There is information about the artists at the Friends of the Garden website.
The Exhibition is open Thursdays-Sundays from June 5 to June 22 – 11.00am to 6.00pm. The post code for West Lavington Manor is SN10 4LA. Entry: adults – £6. Under-16s – free.
[Images are copyright of the artists.]
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