As Victoria Art Gallery is to Bath, so Neo:gallery is to Bolton - if I park in town, I pass right by the gallery and if it's open I have to come up with a pretty convincing reason not to go in.
And so, for all that my free time is diminishing for the moment, I still managed last weekend to visit Structure - a contemporary textiles exhibition at Neo:gallery. Yet again, there was plenty to please - the technical skills of a textile artist are a closed book to me, but I can still appreciate the craft and artistry on display. The exhibition shows the work of a group who have called themselves eleven - a name that can be a bit of a hostage to circumstance, of course, just as our own group thirteen show was. It turned out we managed to be fourteen, and in similar fashion, eleven has become, in this show at least, ten. Nothing wrong with a subset, mind you.
There are birds ('Birds in Flight', Susan Sydall, who is also the curator along with Bella May Leonard), there's a rug ('Splash Aran Carpet, Judith Watson), there are jewel-bright grid-like works ('Print stitch cut sew', Sian O'Doherty), a drifty wall hanging ('Zhumba', Amy Smerdon), windows ('Home' series, Jo Smith) and plenty more.
And so, for all that my free time is diminishing for the moment, I still managed last weekend to visit Structure - a contemporary textiles exhibition at Neo:gallery. Yet again, there was plenty to please - the technical skills of a textile artist are a closed book to me, but I can still appreciate the craft and artistry on display. The exhibition shows the work of a group who have called themselves eleven - a name that can be a bit of a hostage to circumstance, of course, just as our own group thirteen show was. It turned out we managed to be fourteen, and in similar fashion, eleven has become, in this show at least, ten. Nothing wrong with a subset, mind you.
There are birds ('Birds in Flight', Susan Sydall, who is also the curator along with Bella May Leonard), there's a rug ('Splash Aran Carpet, Judith Watson), there are jewel-bright grid-like works ('Print stitch cut sew', Sian O'Doherty), a drifty wall hanging ('Zhumba', Amy Smerdon), windows ('Home' series, Jo Smith) and plenty more.
My stand-out favourite work there is a combination of cement and knitted fibres (Bethany Walker) - can't quite work out what the attraction is. I don't think it's the obvious one of contrast. More likely is that it's something geological or archeological, a notion of excavation, that the pieces have uncovered the knitting already encased in concrete. Many (many) years ago, I remember some work at a Bolton graduation show, combining glass and concrete in a vaguely similar fashion, and that was similarly attractive.
Bethany Walker
I found time, too, to queue in the damp to submit a couple of pieces for this year's Bath Society of Artists' Summer Exhibition - the turnaround time is less than a week, so I'll know in the next few days whether to be pleased or flattened. I hope I manage to get something in again - for all the walls are crowded with work, which doesn't appeal to everyone as a hanging style, I think it's great, like a giant artistic sweet shop, and I like to be a part of it. Can't wait to see this year's show, whether I'm in it or not.
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