woodnudetreelimb

woodnudetreelimb

Four perspectives on natural form

Featuring work from artists Pippa Carter, Tansy Lee Moir, Allan Sinclair and Pippa Sinclair.

Together they are showcasing an exciting combination of paintings, drawings and sculptures around the theme of figure and tree.

Opens Saturday 13th July to 21st July 2013

Gallery open 10am – 6pm

Preview 6.30 – 9.30pm Friday 12th July

at Gallery 2, Art’s Complex

St Margaret’s House, 151 London Road

Edinburgh EH7 6AE

For more details contact pippa.sinclair@gmail.com

That’s all for now folks!

The show has come down now, holes have been filled, works have been packed and Gallery 2 at Art’s Complex is empty once again.

Thanks to everyone who put on their sunglasses and hats and ventured out into this amazing Edinburgh heat to see the show.  We’ve had some excellent feedback and comments about our work and how professionally it was presented, which makes all the hard work mounting the show feel worthwhile.  There were also an encouraging number of works sold which will be delivered to their proud new owners soon.

So from Pippa, Tansy, Pippa and Allan, it’s a big thank you and goodbye for now…

Now showing!

Thanks to everyone who attended the preview last night and contributed the the wonderful atmosphere – we’re pleased that the show has been so well received.  There are also a fair sprinkling of red dots which is always nice too.

Here are some shots of the whole show…

Almost ready…

We’ve been working hard through this long hot week to get the show ready for tonight’s preview.  This view was taken last night as we placed Allan’s sculpture in the space – it’s not quite finished but nearly there.  The four of us are obviously a bit biased but we think it looks great – hopefully you will too when you visit it at Art’s Complex.  Most of the wall hung works are for sale and we’re hoping for a few red dots tonight too, which would make all the work worthwhile!

Pippa Carter painting

Pippa Carter is currently working on new figurative works exploring the cycles of birth, growth, fertility and decay which weave human life and the natural world together. She draws inspiration from the richly symbolic language of poetry such as that of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Pippa’s painting process varies depending on the final outcome desired of the piece. These two works are still at an imprimatura stage, where an underpainting in raw umber or another transparent pigment establishes the drawing before colour is applied. Other paintings are completed with more immediacy, mixing directly on the palette and painting wet in wet. She is becoming increasingly drawn to the tactile, malleable qualities of paint itself, and hopes to push this further in future.

Allan’s carving process

Here is a photo of the piece Allan is working on at present.

The wooden sculpture, nearly completed, is clamped down to the work bench, with the mallet and some of the gouges and rasps used in carving it visible. The ear muffs and dust mask are essential. The carving will require further sanding, then oiling and waxing before it is complete and ready to be shown.

Tansy’s studio view

Pictured here is Tansy’s studio with ‘Philpstoun ghost beech’ almost completed on the drawing board.  She uses fine charcoal dust to begin her drawings, toning the whole surface of the paper then removing the lights with chamois and brushes.  The drawing progresses through light and dark, addition and subtraction, random and precise mark-making, until its resolution.  This might take only a couple of days, or several weeks on and off.

“I love that satisfying moment when the drawing comes off the board, when I trim away the scruffy edges and it’s suddenly transformed into a finished work.”

You will be able to see ‘Philpston ghost beech’ in the flesh at the show, between 13th and 21st July.

Pippa Sinclair

Pippa Sinclair is a contemporary landscape painter based in the Scottish Borders. Pippa has worked in several creative fields over the years since completing her painting degree at Edinburgh College of Art in 1997. Once she moved to the Yarrow Valley in 2006 and into her current studio she found more time to paint and has been inspired by the peaceful winding space of her surroundings.

Her recent paintings mix graphic and painterly elements to play with notions of space within the canvas. It is the contrasts within the sensations of the landscape that excite her and the powerful physical presence of trees and streams that are her subjects.

www.pippasinclair.co.uk

Allan Sinclair

Allan Sinclair’s hard wood carvings are of semi-abstracted nudes and figures. Imperfections and grain patterns within the wood form an integral part of the sculptures which are equally influenced by the wood and the human figure.

Tansy Lee Moir

Crichton torso beech 2, charcoal on paper

Tansy Lee Moir is an Edinburgh based figurative artist working predominantly with charcoal on paper.

Originally from Matlock in Derbyshire, she moved to Scotland in 1994 and spent 15 years developing a practice combining art with a community development approach.   She then took a studio at Edinburgh’s Art’s Complex and returned to drawing, focusing on creating a body of work made in response to trees.

Her work is inspired by their forms, their history and the influence that humans, animals and natural processes have in shaping them:  in the way they provide a solid representation of time.  It explores their three dimensional forms, investigating their capacity to regenerate, survive and adapt.  However, the drawings have been referred to as ‘life drawing from trees’ and she is often unintentionally influenced by the human body, leading the viewer to wonder if they are looking at wood or flesh.

See more on her website and facebook page.

Pippa Carter

Pippa Carter was given a sheep skull to draw by her schoolteacher when she was five years old. It was an unlikely love at first sight experience, and began a lifelong fascination for observing and capturing the natural world. Her work investigates the relationship between light, form, and the nature of seeing.