Jane Hedges & Ian Middleton
JANE HEDGES Paintings My paintings respond to the changing colours and play of light in my garden,the view from my studio stretching away towards the sea and places I experience while travelling. I work from photographs and drawings, reducing the subject to a grid then breaking down each square to a series of geometric shapes. I am using abstraction to generalize particular visual experiences: fragmentation of light through trees, the isolation of views and colour through open doors and windows, the illumination of the everyday world through positive and negative shapes; the sensations and responses I experience are expressed in paint. I layer and re-arrange the picture surface over a period of time breaking down the picture frame, the painting becomes a number of paintings, geometric webs and structures each worked over the last one in response to the complexity and colour of its predecessors. With each layer I work across the canvas and gradually the painting begins to emerge as the colours harmonize and rhythms evoke my initial feelings. IAN MIDDLETON Sculpture Casting is central to the way I make sculpture and I have been using the studio method of ceramic shell bronze casting for about 25 years. I begin by making moulds from 'found objects' or things I've made in clay or wood. I often cast multiple elements which I bolt on to larger pieces, or I construct the sculpture in wax by welding the different cast elements together. There is usually a repetitive element in my work. I might see the sculpture quickly through association or juxtaposition, but this realisation also happens gradually over a period of time in the studio as part of an ongoing process of chance and assimilation. I may try things out in the wax, and different elements come and go as the dialogue evolves; it's a process I find interesting because it invariably surprises me. A media image, news clip or sometimes a 'found object', which has a particular 'presence' or resonance, might trigger a starting point. The context is often events and forces which shape our lives: politics, religion, commerce, the environment, etc. The work is not constrained by these forces but is free to evolve independently while maintaining the intensity of its origins.
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: ianmiddleton-sculpture.com