Portraits, Landscapes, Abstractions
18th July - 21st September 2024
Celebrating 26 years this summer, HackelBury Fine Art is pleased to present Portraits, Landscapes, Abstractions, from 18th July – 14th September.
The group exhibition features various mediums, including photography, papercut, collage, Kallitypes, wet plate collodion, and drawing.
Alys Tomlinson’s striking black-and-white photography captures intimate portraits. The Gli Isolani series showcases Italian Islanders, while Lost Summer features young adults in their prom outfits, taken during the COVID lockdown.
Sharon Walters’ multi-layered portraits celebrate Black women - their history, culture and identity. Made from intricate hand-assembled collages and paper cut-outs, she creates a dimensionality that literally and metaphorically opens up space and gives a voice to those often excluded and unheard.
In contrast, Bill Armstrong’s abstract portraits from his Infinity series present floating figures set against saturated colour. Dialling the camera’s focusing ring to infinity, he deliberately blurs the photographs to create ethereal, dreamlike images. This approach allows Armstrong to explore themes of impermanence, abstraction and the boundaries of visual perception, transforming portraiture into painterly compositions.
Colour plays a significant role in Coral Woodbury’s In Place series. Here, Woodbury creates a personal travelogue by finding a timeworn book specific to a location and recording her experiences through the language of colour.
Stephen Inggs references ubiquitous flowers and plants to explore complex issues around colonialism, migration, land ownership and ecology. Using silver gelatin emulsion on cotton rag paper, he creates large-scale black-and-white artwork with a painterly effect that provides a timeless quality.
Nadezda Nikolova reimagines landscapes in her abstractions, capturing a singular sense of oneness and universal connectivity as a homage to nature.
Meanwhile, Katja Liebmann’s Gotham City focuses on urban landscapes, and Alexander Vitkine’s work highlights industrial silhouettes in his signature black-and-white photographs.
Doug & Mike Starn have worked conceptually with photography for over 30 years. Their ongoing interest in the constant yet changing natural phenomena and the interconnection between nature and human existence is a recurring theme in their work.
Oli Kellett’s Soap Drawings, which he began in 2019, offer an introspective approach. This daily practice involves drawing a bar of soap and documenting its gradual and subtle changes as it diminishes over time, serving as a metaphor for life’s journey and transformation.
Portraits, Landscapes, Abstractions provides a rich exploration of themes, artistic processes and practices, inviting viewers to engage with each artist’s unique vision and technique.