EARTH MADE, The Oriel Gallery at Antrim Castle Gardens
14th March - 28th April
I am delighted that the Earth Made collaborative exhibition with ceramic artist, Patricia Millar, is now installed and open to the public at The Oriel Gallery, Antrim Castle Gardens and Clotworthy House.
The exhibition marks the culmination of 6 months of collaboration between myself and Patricia Millar with the support of funding from The Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Earth Made reflects our respective creative processes but focuses on collaboration through the sharing of earth materials, which connect to stories, heritage, place, and folklore. These materials have been collected, foraged and exchanged from the 'waste' of each-others practice, to create sustainable land Art.
The exhibition presents a series of new artworks created in textile and clay using, in the majority, materials gathered sustainably from local landscapes; from windfallen bark to make dyes and inks through to wild clays and ochres gathered from Northern Ireland's North Coast. This experimental process of working with each-other's mediums and experimenting with new earth materials is showcased in a parallel display titled 'Process Lab' on the Gallery's upper floor. Here, insight is provided into the process and materials that have inspired the finished artworks.
I'll be sharing more about individual artworks and processes in the coming weeks- particularly working with earth pigments on textile and creating printing ink from natural dyes. Some of these processes have been entirely new to me- borne out of this collaboration, while others mark a refinement and solidification of my commitment to working with natural materials for colour, pattern and texture. These have not been without their challenges, and I plan to share some of that learning in future blogs.
About the Artists
Patricia Millar is a ceramic artist from the Causeway Coast. She references archaic domestic forms preserved within the landscape. The potency of these ancient vessels inspires not only form but the methods by which she works. Using Ice Age gravels from ditches that criss-cross fields, glacial clays deposited from springs along basalt cliffs and ash glaze from coppiced woodland, rushes and grasses, her vessels celebrate form, colour and texture of their geological and anthropological origins.
https://www.patriciamillarceramics.com/
Ruth Osborne is textile artist working primarily on Irish Linen, which is chosen for its aesthetic qualities and heritage on the island of Ireland. Her work focuses on connection and communion with nature and a sense of place, taking inspiration from folklore and heritage innate within the local landscape and changing seasons. Working primarily with sustainably foraged natural materials as part of the creative process, her practice often draws upon the historical process of Nature Printing, as used by both artists and botanists since the 15th Century, alongside natural dyeing and ink making, eco-print, and printmaking processes.
