Curator - Helen Foot Helen Foot is a textile designer, lecturer and curator from Shropshire. With a Masters from the Royal College of Art, Helen returned to her home county after graduation in 2010 to set up her textile design business. Through her involvement in several arts groups she has developed a strong local network of fellow artists and designer makers. Her background in textiles ensures she has an appreciation of quality and a keen eye for detail which in Plot 9 she marries with a blend of fresh colour, contemporary style and humour. Having curated two exhibitions last year in Shrewsbury, Helen now brings to ALLOTMENT her pick of the brightest emerging and established artists from the County.
www.helenfoot.co.uk
Showcase Shropshire Plot 9 Exhibitors: Sophie Copage Ella Ruth Cowperthwaite Christophe Dillinger Beth Fletcher Richard Foot Julie Hedges Millbank & Foot Pam Newall R&A Collaborations Hayley Robinson
Sophie Copage Sophie Copage is a printmaker and textile designer who gained her BA at Ravensbourne College of Design in 2007. On graduating she won a place with 'Texprint', a national award which takes graduating textile designers to exhibit in Paris. Whilst showing at Indigo in Paris Sophie sold her designs to H&M, Built NY, Custo Barcelona and others. Since then she has had experience working on print and graphic designs for high street fashion retailers such as Debenhams, House of Frasier, Topman, Fat Face and ASOS, including freelance projects and commissions. More recently Sophie has been concentrating on developing her own portfolio and printmaking skills working with a more illustrative style inspired by science, nature and surrealism. Recent exhibitions include MATERIAL at the Bearsteps Gallery in Shrewsbury, the Open exhibition at the Birmingham Printmakers and Gallery SCA in Shrewsbury.
www.sophiecopage.com
Title: Bacteria Medium: Pen and ink Dimensions: 57x61cm Price: ￥350
Title: Cross Section Medium: Digital print Dimensions: 53x55cm Price: ￥200
Ella Ruth Cowperthwaite Ella Ruth Cowperthwaite is a 20-year-old self-taught photographer. Having been creative from a young age, Ella picked up her first camera at five. Since then she has been translating the chaotic creativity of her mind into art. Photography has taken over as her artistic outlet and she aims to challenge our realities by creating new worlds within her images whilst using natural lighting and real women as models. Currently Ella’s focus is on fashion, portraiture and conceptual work, though she is forever broadening her outlook and finding new ways to apply her vision to other areas of photography. Her inspiration comes from the settings in which her dreams take place and she mimics elements of these in her work. "I see the world through my camera and my photographs show the world that I see."
www.ellaruthc.daportfolio.com
Title: Cat and Mouse Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 23x23cm Price: ￥70
Title: My Manic and I Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 23x23cm Price: ￥70
Christophe Dillinger Christophe Dillinger's art practice is mainly based on analogue photographic techniques exploring notions of form and substance in the image, through the hand production of films using traditional mark making techniques (the Swirls series), or through typing on negatives with a second hand typewriter (the Typewriter series). Both series investigate the relevance of faithful representation of the real in photography, and is inspired by the work of abstract expressionist painters such as Franz Kline. His work is entirely film based and is not modified digitally (Christophe practices WYSIWIGOTN photography, which stands for What You See Is What I Got On The Negative). He also works with other alternative techniques, such as cutting and pasting negatives together and putting acetate cut outs on negatives. He is currently branching out and trying to redefine part of the concepts of photographic production, working on creating photographic apparatus / objects that focus on mark making, interactivity, text and the moment.
www.cdillinger.co.uk
Title: Coat Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 40x40cm 8 Numbered editions Price: ￡500
Title: Essor Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 40x40cm 8 Numbered editions Price: ￡500
Title: One Man and His Dog Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 40x40cm 8 Numbered editions Price: ￡500
Beth Fletcher Grounded in the British and European landscape tradition, Beth Fletcher’s art consists of translating into visual language a felt experience of landscape. Her works describe a multi-sensory response to light, wind, water and land with paint, which has its own complex and invigorating language. Painting landscape truthfully is as much about touch as vision, as much about intuition and memory as conscious thought and decision. It requires intuitive, gestural and organic mark-making, reproducing the actions of nature, adjusting and re-adjusting to every previous mark, responding to colour relationships and ideas that have gone before in order to build up a constructed experiential landscape. These layered, transient, seen and felt moments, when transformed through the painting process, are intended to engender a prolonged engagement with the painting as a mediated experience of landscape. In the studio, rather than directly in front of the landscape, Beth can paint under the influence of the memory’s interpretation of the living landscape – the ‘soul-yearning’ which is a response to more than what is manifest only to the eye. Using landscape forms and motifs, rather than reproducing a specific 'view', heightens the interaction between painting and viewer, inviting an intuitive response. www.bethfletcher.co.uk
Title: The Island (Swimming) Medium: Oil On Board Dimensions: 70x50cm Price: ￡850
Title: Underwood, Deep Shadow Medium: Oil On Board Dimensions: 40x20cm Price: ￡420
Richard Foot Richard Foot uses photography to explore his interest in the built environment. Through abstraction, Richard challenges the viewer to see architecture in new ways, with concentration on surfaces, geometry and colour. Drawn to the aesthetic of vintage film processes, but without the use of new digital effects, Richard prefers to shoot with cameras such as the Kodak Box brownie. Amplified by the use of out of date film, the effects on the image are unpredictable and give a nostalgic, almost decayed feel to subjects. His Polaroid series 'Journey' was shot in 2010 around numerous locations in the UK. Richard curated the collection into an imaginary journey through an urban landscape. Devoid of people, there is a sense of emptiness that reflects the modern urban environments often unwelcoming persona.
www.footprintphotography.co.uk
Title: Frankwell Suspension Bridge Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 25.5x25.5cm Price: ￡80
Title: Red Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 16x16cm Price: ￡50
Title: Yellow Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 16x16cm Price: ￡50
Title: Blue Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 16x16cm Price: ￡50
Julie Hedges Julie Hedges is an experienced weaver, braidmaker, teacher and a Textiles / Fashion graduate of John Moores University, Liverpool. She worked in the Textiles Department at the Surrey Institute, Farnham until 2000, after which she set up her own studio in Shropshire. Since 1991 Julie has been researching the Indian technique of Ply-Split Braiding, a process traditionally used for making animal harnesses, developing it to make wearable and sculptural pieces in a variety of yarns. The importance of yarn selection and use of colour in relation to structure is vital to her work. Julie has exhibited and sold her work in the UK, Europe & USA and has also written two books, ‘PlySplit Braiding, an introduction’ in 2006 and ‘PlySplit Braiding, Further Techniques in 2011. She teaches workshops to groups throughout the UK & has also taught in India and the USA. Commissions welcome.
www.juliehedges.co.uk
Title: Vessel With Feet Turned In Medium: Linen Braid Dimensions: 15x25cm Price: ￡390
Title: Hexagon Dish With Fringe Medium: Linen Braid Dimensions: 23x23cm Price: ￡360
Millbank & Foot Millbank & Foot is a creative collaboration established in July 2011 between designers Kate Millbank and Helen Foot. Both are graduates from prestigious British Art Schools, namely the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. By combining their skills in textiles and fashion, along with a passion for sustainable design Millbank & Foot are pioneering a range of innovative woven and printed textiles that celebrate contemporary British design and craftsmanship. Millbank & Foot are primarily developing a range of tweeds inspired by the landscape, architecture and history of their Shropshire surroundings. Vibrant and acidic colours present in local lichens feature alongside natural hues from the landscape. Patterns and woven structures are informed by traditional timber frame buildings from the area, and combined with inspiration from Darwin’s evolutionary studies. The Wenlock scarf marks the pairs first divergence into printed products and has been designed to celebrate Shropshire’s connection to the 2012 London Olympic Games. www.millbankandfoot.co.uk
Title: Wenlock Scarf Medium: Silk Dimensions: 90x90cm Price: ￥150
Pam Newall Pam Newall seeks to use her printmaking as a way of registering and perhaps managing the impact of our daily experience, with an awareness of a multitude of separate consciousnesses constantly shifting through the town and the city. "I try to make images that resonate with some earlier activity, that hold a sense of absence, that catch things at the margins." Printmaking is a way for Pam to see things more consciously and less casually, of indexing experience and controlling the chaos of incessant observation. She would like her prints to record the marginal, to merit the viewer lingering in front of them and to leave them wondering about the stories within. Pam builds up drawings or photographic images, sometimes worked into, using techniques like etching, photoetch and photoscreen/silkscreen.
www.pamnewall.com
Title: Reflect Medium: Print Dimensions: 83x64cm Price: ￥325
R&A Collaborations R&A Collaborations is Richard Foot and Arron Fowler. Originally brought together to make a single film, the result was so successful they decided to continue their partnership. R&A’s first two films, Manipulator and I Am Fluid, were selected and shown at the Crafts Council 'Power of Making' exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum for the duration of the exhibition. Since then they have gone on to make more films about artists and makers who are passionate about what they do. In these documentaries R&A aim to find out why people do what they do, what it feels like and what it looks like. Along the way R&A have started to tap into the wide and exciting world of makers in the UK, broadening their knowledge and enthusiasm for all things handmade, quality and delicious. The films are all made in a day using still imaginary and original sound content. The film 'Cry of Tin' was shown at this year's Flatpack Film Festival 'A Life's Work' series. Commissions welcome.
www.racollaborations.co.uk
Title: Manipulator Medium: Video Dimensions: 720x576px Price: NFS Title: I Am Fluid Medium: Video Dimensions: 720x576px Price: NFS Title: Occurrence Of Birds Medium: Video Dimensions: 720x576px Price: NFS Title: Cry Of Tin Medium: Video Dimensions: 720x576px Price: NFS Title: No Undo Medium: Video Dimensions: 720x720px Price: NFS
Hayley Robinson Hayley Robinson’s obsession with cameras and photography started back in 1995 when her father taught her how to use his Nikon FM at home in their garden. "My Father explained how precious every image exposed onto film is and that’s something that has stayed with me throughout my practice as a photographer." Hayley graduated from Birmingham City University with a 1st class Bachelor of Arts Degree in photography. Predominantly shooting on black & white film using medium format cameras, Hayley then develops and prints images by hand in her darkroom in Newport, Shropshire. Hayley’s passion is travel documentary photography and her work has taken her across North and South America, around Europe and up into the Arctic Circle. She has been exhibited across the West midlands both as a solo artist and as part of group shows. The image shown in PLOT 9 is taken from Hayley’s latest book, MOTEL.
www.bwsphotography.co.uk
Title: Caliente Medium: Photograph Dimensions: 69x53cm Price: ￥300