Velarde presents The Shape of Now, an exhibition of calm and contemplative works in paint, wood, plaster and clay that express ideas through dot, line, circle and simplicity of form. Artist Helen Booth studied Fine Art Painting at Wimbledon School of Art and in 2019 won the Pollock Krasner Foundation Award for Painting. She uses a simple language of dots and muted colour to explore the molecular wonder of the atmospheric world that surrounds us. The silence of snowfall, the atomic structure of frozen water and the subtleties of winter light are all expressed on canvas in a limited palette of whites and repeated, dotted marks which merge space and sensory experience, reminding us of the interconnectedness of ourselves and spatial reality.
Devon based sculptor Jilly Sutton trained at Exeter College of Art and is a Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. The peaceful location of her studio beside the River Dart is reflected in the serenity of her work, in which she uses simplicity of line and shape to explore the sculptural possibilities of trees, birds, animals and the human form. Using locally fallen or felled timber, she carves, sandblasts and limes her material to enhance the beauty of its natural grain, combining the warmth of wood with pared down forms to celebrate the unique nature of all living things.
Ceramicist Jane Sheppard lives and works in Somerset and is a Selected Member of the Craft Potters Association. Her work explores shared human experience, reaching back to our ancestors, connecting us with our distant past using ancient methods of working with clay. Through a process of hand coiling, smoke firing and burnishing, she creates forms and vessels that echo our earliest experience of hand shaping the earth, using simple resist techniques to add primitive surface details such as dots and circles.
Painter Hannah Luxton graduated with a Masters degree from the Slade School of Fine Art. Her work explores ideas of Animism, the 19th century Romantic concept that attributes living souls to inanimate objects and natural phenomena, and celebrates the spiritual power of nature. Using single pigment oil colours, often grinding her own semi-precious and rare colours such as Malachite and Lapis Lazuli, she works on unprimed linen to signify ideas of a supreme 'nothingness', using simplified shapes, lines and circles to express features of the material universe.
Susan Laughton’s background as an architecture technician is reflected in the nature of her painting, which takes flat, structural shapes and an almost mathematical approach to line to create remembered impressions and fleeting glimpses of rural and urban landscapes. She works in acrylic on wood, or canvases primed with plaster, a surface which absorbs layers of paint and allows pigmentation to vary so that objects emerge and recede on the picture plane. Restraint, simplicity of form and an understanding of the spatial potential of line give these works a rare purity and quiet power. The exhibition is on until May 18 at Velarde, 86 Fore St, Kingsbridge. www.velarde.co.uk
