visual arts & contemporary crafts Towner Eastbourne Barbara Hepworth – Art & Life

Running from May to September the show will display some of Hepworth’s most celebrated sculptures including the modern abstract carving that launched her career in the 1920s and 1930s, her iconic strung sculptures of the 1940s and 1950s, and large-scale bronze and carved sculptures from later in her career.

Key loans from national public collections will be shown alongside works from private collections that have not been on public display since the 1970s, and rarely seen drawings, paintings and fabric designs.

The exhibition will open with an introduction to Barbara Hepworth’s work and a look at her childhood in Yorkshire, including some of the artist’s earliest known paintings, carvings and life drawings as she began to explore movement and the human form. It will also explore Hepworth’s passion for dance and how she captured movement with gestural paintings and sculptures.

The exhibition will culminate with Hepworth’s interest in science and technology, from the bold geometric abstract drawings and sculptures made in the 1930s, through to her iconic Hospital Drawings of the 1940s, and her fascination with the Space Race in the 1960s. Hepworth noted at the end of the decade, “Man’s discovery of flight has radically altered the shape of our sculpture, just as it has altered our thinking”. With all these works, Hepworth married her interest in science with a deep spirituality, which will also be explored through the exhibition. Visit www.townereastbourne.org.uk for full details.

A Tribute to British Artists

Gill Bustamante - Artist & Art Tutor

As a landscape and wildlife artist I have enthused a few times in this lovely magazine about the way that nature inspires me and needs to be looked after!

I am therefore delighted to see that the movement to save what is left of our beautiful landscapes and birds and animals is growing. Rewilding projects, assigning national parks, preserving coastline, protecting animals and birds, etc are all now in the collective awareness of living in Britain. According to David Attenborough in his latest BBC series, only 13% of Britain is now woodland. Considering that Britain was once just a massive forest this is tragic. However, there is hope for it and I, and many other artists, will continue to campaign for our landscapes just by creating artwork that illustrates its beauty to others. A heartfelt thank you to the South Downs Artists group (@southdownsartists) and to anyone who is working to keep Britain beautiful and save its natural environments and wildlife. –Gill

Bustamante

www.gillbustamante.com M: 07815 036576