New Exhibitions at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield - Carol Douglas, Leila Babirye & Bharti Kher

Carol Douglas - Autumn Kitchen II

I went along to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to see the Carol Douglas exhibition Actually I Can.  It didn't disappoint.  Carol is a York based artist, who using acrylics on canvas, paints everyday objects and people in an slightly abstracted way. She only embarked on her painting career in her 60s and has become very popular.  I have seen her work at several York Open Studios events and if you're from further afield you might have seen her work in TOAST stores across the UK in 2022 or in other exhibitions across the country.  Actually I Can is on until Sunday 27 October 2024.  Here's a flavour...

Carol Douglas - Checked Kitchen Cloth, Early Breakfast, Dinner for One 

Carol Douglas - Conversation II & Conversation III

Carol Douglas - Grey Corner

Carol Douglas - Grey Fruit Bowl II, Two Vessels, Diamond Patterned Cloth, Flower Vase, Grey Fruit Bowl, Check Table Cloth II
(L to R from top to bottom)

Carol Douglas - Secret Meeting II, Encounter, Secret Meeting, First Date, Evening Walk, Orange Skirt

Carol Douglas - Tango

Another talented York maker, also championed by TOAST, is Kate Semple.  Kate is one of TOAST's 2024 New Makers and her beautiful ceramics are currently available in the YSP shop...

Kate Semple Vases - YSP Shop

Of course, whilst I was at YSP I also went to see Leilah Babirye's Obumu (Unity) in the Chapel.  Her work reinvents trash as something beautiful.  Leilah Babirye is based in the USA but was born in Uganda and the work on show was made in summer 2023 when she visited YSP.  The wood is from the YSP and was sculpted with a chainsaw and then charred to black and waxed before elements from the YSP workshops were added.  Her work references African masks to explore the diversity of LGBTQ+ identities.  I loved these sculptures.  This exhibition is on until Sunday 8 September 2024. Take a look...

Leilah Babirye - Obumu (Unity)

Leilah Babirye - Obumu (Unity)

Leilah Babirye - Obumu (Unity)

Leilah Babirye - Obumu (Unity)

Leilah Babirye - Obumu (Unity)

And in the Underground Gallery and outside is Bharti Kher: Alchemies which is on until Sunday 27 April 2025.  These sculptures and 2D pieces are based round the idea of transformation. This is just a very small selection of the pieces I liked...

Bharti Kher - The hot winds that blow from the West (218)

This piece is made from old radiators that Kher had shipped from the USA to India.  We are told they look like animal carcasses with their ribs exposed and the title refers to changing east west power dynamics.

Bharti Kher - Milk Teeth

Bharti Kher - Milk Teeth (detail)

Bharti Kher - A poem for night creatures

These two pieces are made from smashed mirrors with bindis attached.  A bindi is a dot of pigment worn between the eyebrows of South Asian women.  They are supposed to represent the "third eye",  relating to inner wisdom and how we see the world. These stick on felt bindis that Kher has added to these pieces have become a signature part of her work.  She has been using them since 1995.  The fractured mirrors suggest many different views.

Bharti Kher - Virus XV

Bharti Kher began her Virus series in 2010 and intends to continue until 2039, with a work each year.  Here the work consists of a spiral of bindis and a pre-written text prophesing what might happen in each year and for those past years, some facts about what has actually happened.  They are wide ranging and might relate to climate, health, politics, conflict, technology and scientific discovery.  At the end of each prohesy is her age which is the only thing that is certain.

The YSP is a great place to visit - interesting exhibitions, a great shop and cafe and plenty of outdoor space and sculpture to explore.  If you've never been, make a date to go!

Summer Exhibition 2024 at the Royal Academy, London

Bass Rock (Songs of the North Volume 1) - David Moore and Kate Davis
 woven music score

This year the RA Summer Exhibition's theme is ‘Making Space’. A friend very kindly took me along last time I was in London and it was great to peruse all the exhibits (over 1700 in 13 gallery spaces) and also a bit overwhelming. Here are a baker's dozen that caught my eye...

Bass Rock (Songs of the North Volume 1) detail - David Moore and Kate Davis
 woven music score - detail

Bass Rock by David Moore & Kate Davis was my favourite piece - not only because I'm familiar with the place as a landmark but also the picture's construction and that you could see the musical notes when you got close up.  It was woven from a musical score.

Super stitched, narrative piece by Sophie-Louise Pywell - very thought provoking...

A Common Thread - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

A Common Thread (detail) - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

A Common Thread (detail) - Sophie-Louise Pywell
hand embroidery on calico

Very nostalgic piece by Jane Chipp...

Vestiges - Jane Chipp
collage using antique papers

Who doesn't love a pencil!  I loved that Minty Sainsbury saved all these pencils and all that work they represented...

Practise - Minty Sainsbury
272 pencil stubs collected over nine years of drawing

Practise (detail) - Minty Sainsbury
272 pencil stubs collected over nine years of drawing

The textures of the porcelain and the colours were fabulous in this piece by Julie Massie... 

Vast Seas in Green to Grey - Julie Massie
porcelain on wood

Chunyoung Yang's work made me smile...

Love Myself - Chunyoung Yang
knitting wool and cotton filling

Loved the textures in Rachel Pearcey's A Space Redefined...

A Space Redefined - Rachel Pearcey
thread on cotton twill throw

A Space Redefined (detail) - Rachel Pearcey
thread on cotton twill throw

What I loved about Sam McKechnie's piece was that it offered so many possibilities of stories that could be told...

Clean - Sam McKechnie
glazed wooden box containing found objects, pastels and paper collage

Alison Aye made me wonder whether the end of the world was near...

Shifting to the Moon - Alison Aye
paper hand-stitched to tea towel

The colours and textures appealed in this piece by Viola Cullip...

Never Mind the Gaps - Viola Cullip
recycled sari fabric and handdyed muslin with hand and machine embroidery

I loved this mosaic from the Hackney Mosaic Project...

Some Hackney Birds - Hackney Mosaic Project
glass and ceramic mosaic

These were Abigail O'Brien's prints of the original stitched pictures which was hard to tell from where you could view it.  In fact throughout the exhibition, there were a number of prints of textiles that looked like the actual textiles, even up close...

Mentation I and Mentation II - Abigail O’Brien
archival print 

and of course I loved this by Neville Godwin...

Nothing to See Here - Neville Godwin

screenprint with hand distressing and applied glitter

This is an image of the postcard as the print was too high up in the gallery for me to get a good picture.

In addition, outside in the courtyard, this monumental piece by Nicola Turner was something to behold.   Tendrils, which Turner has twisted and stitched together, come off and wrap round the statue of Joshua Reynolds in a rather foreboding way. Turner uses found objects including grand piano legs, chair stuffing and horsehair from old mattresses. In using these objects she gives new life to what would otherwise be discarded.  I found this grimly fascinating...

The Meddling Fiend - Nicola Turner
mixed media including horsehair, wool, wood and brass

The Meddling Fiend (detail) - Nicola Turner
mixed media including horsehair, wool, wood and brass

The Summer Exhibition is on at the RA until Sunday 18 August 2024.  I think you could go many times and notice different things every time. There's so much, you're bound to find something you like.  There was a large piece by El Anatsui and some Cornelia Parker pieces that I liked and many smaller pieces that I enjoyed too.  There's lots for sale if you want to buy something, from less than £100 to many thousands of pounds - or you could just buy a postcard!

Interconnected - City Lit, London

Lindy Dumas - Aged 15, A work in progress - Jacket

On a recent trip to London I went to see Interconnected at City Lit.  It was the end of course exhibition for their Advanced Textiles 2022-2024 Course.  You can see their work on instagram - @textile24group.  Ten textile artists were exhibiting and you can see the work of four of them here...

Lindy Dumas - Aged 15, A work in progress - Jacket

I loved Lindy Dumas' work.  Recalling her school days in rural Wales in the 1960s, Lindy's teenage mind wandered from her lessons to outfits for the weekend, messages to friends and other distractions.  Her stitched and collaged blazer and stitched cuffs, referencing this time, were great!

Lindy Dumas - Aged 15, A work in progress - Stitched cuffs (I wish it was summer)

Mei Lock's parents came to Britain in the early 1970s and eventually started their own Chinese take-away and later ran a fish and chip shop.  Being British born and growing up Chinese, put migration and identity at the centre of Mei's work...

Mei Lock - Made it in the UK

Mei Lock - Made it in the UK (detail - But where are you REALLY from?)

Mei Lock - Made it in the UK (detail- CHIPS)

Mei Lock - Made it in the UK (detail - TAKE AW...)

Mei used rice sacks as the fabric for her stitching, and exploited the use of positive and negative space to spell out her messages, stitched mostly in rice sized, white stitching.  I thought her work was very thought provoking and cleverly done.

Julie Yogasundram - Large & Medium Vessel & Jug

Julie Yogasundram's work uses the discarded work of skilled embroiderers of the past.  These traycoths and tablecloths can often be found cheaply in charity shops. Adding her own hand and machine stitching, Julie turns them into something more contemporary that can, again, have value and is more suited to the modern home.  These looked great.

Julie Yogasundram - Fruits of our labours

Myra Bloomfield does not want her textile pieces to be categorised.  Using handstitch, print and applique on naturally dyed and repurposed cloth she creates contemporary assemblages. The dense stitching is meant to refer to the traditional use of stitch as a means of joining, making, repair and embellishment.

Myra Bloomfield - Conversation Pieces (detail)

Her work brought to my mind visible mending, patchwork and boro...

Myra Bloomfield - Conversation Pieces 

This exhibition finished on 18 July 2024 but you can check out the group's work over on instagram.

New Liberty Print Fabric Necklaces by Hippystitch

New Hippystitch Liberty Print Fabric Necklaces

 

I am rather fond of Liberty fabrics so it's always a pleasure to go and choose some for my fabric necklaces.  Recently I bought a particularly nice selection and have enjoyed making them up.  Geography was always my favourite subject so I particularly like the map fabrics...

Liberty Prints - Cary's Patchwork & Big Smoke

But then there's some super flower prints...

Liberty Prints - Wandering Meadow (pink), Poppy Wonder, Wandering Meadow (blue), Hazy Days

and also a rather nice Althea McNish print of onions...

Liberty Print - Cebollas Garden

parrots...

Liberty Print - Sonny James (parrots)

and a sort of undersea garden...

Liberty Print - Midnight

You can see from the top photo that they are all now made up into necklaces.  You can wear them choker length or longer depending on how you tie them.  They are all made from Tana Lawn cotton so they're lovely and soft against your skin.  You can even carefully handwash them when you need to...

Hippystitch Fabric Necklaces made from Cary's Patchwork Liberty Print

Now they're all available to buy in my Folksy shop.  You can find them here along with others.  Go take a look!