Out With The Old, In With The New
Group exhibition by CAMP members
13th January – 3rd February 2024
Private view: Friday 12th January (6-8pm)
Studio KIND. at The Corn Store, Barnstaple Pannier Market, EX31 1SY
Open Wednesdays to Saturdays 11:00-17:00
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Out With The Old, In With The New is the second CAMP touring exhibition to come to Studio KIND. inviting members to submit work as part of a small group exhibition, showcasing exciting and intriguing work coming out of Devon and Cornwall.
As the first exhibition in our new home, The Corn Store (part of Barnstaple’s historic Pannier Market), the exhibition will include work across different disciplines that responds to the theme.
‘Out With The Old, In With The New’ encompasses ideas of change and flux, transformation, consumption and waste, materiality and cycles of ecologies. During a period of change for the gallery itself, we’re looking forward to seeing how members interpret the positive and negative connotations associated with progression, modernisation and ideas around ‘newness’.
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‘Seer’ by Alice Clough is an embossing of an Iron Age mirror, discovered by archaeologists in Northamptonshire. Made around 50BC from bronze, the alloy was likely made with Devonian or Cornish tin, and in an ancient world where reflections could only be glimpsed in still water, a mirror was a powerful object; used for divination as agents of change, where people would seek wisdom and answers from divine powers or the otherworld. Alice recreates these ‘power objects’ through the embossing process, which feels both sculptural and image-based, and invites a kind of intimacy. Catch it in the wrong light and its markings are nearly invisible, but when you are close to the object the details are revealed, giving the work a subtle, elusive quality.
George Rayner’s photographs from his ‘Echoes’ series explores the dynamics of change, modern consumption, and materiality by juxtaposing Egypt's ancient enduring relics with the desolate remains of tourism left by the COVID-19 pandemic in the recent shadow of contemporary tourism. The work highlights the transient nature of our modernity and prompts reflection on the aspects of ecologies amidst progress and transformation. Forcing a degree of intimacy with each photo; small scale handprinted, curled darkroom prints are left unframed to establish a connection between the ephemeral nature of the imagery and the tangible, vulnerable quality of the presentation. It underpins the essence of fragility, mirroring the delicate balance between preservation and the passage of time.
Janet Sainsbury’s portraits of writer Katherine Mansfield and a young self-portrait, painted whilst reflecting on a period of flux and transition in her own life. In Mansfield’s story ‘The Garden Party’, a young girl’s view of life is transformed as she experiences contradictory and contrasting emotions throughout a single day. At the end of the book she cries, but is unable to say what has moved her. Reading this story, Janet feels connected with the girl, and remembers a childhood party that changed her perception of how she fitted in with her friends, which too ended in tears. The milestones that the fictional party and the remembered party represent are significant; the accumulation of childhood ways of thinking coloured by parental influence are suddenly thrown into sharp relief by peers. A clear-sightedness follows, transformative, and new ways of independent thinking emerge.
Described as a ‘new woman’, Mansfield was a risk taker and innovator and is credited
with reinventing the short story form. She aimed to put life on the page as near as she
could get it.
Stella Tripp reflects on the absurdity of life; the complexity and fragility of the world and our engagement with it. Using a variety of media, and a sensitivity to materials and processes, Stella has developed a rich and delicate abstract language with which to express her inner world - exploring the surrounding environment and making connections. Focusing on the potential of disregarded materials, Stella questions how we derive meaning and pleasure from objects, and reflects upon the randomness of what survives.
‘Scuffed Knees’ by Erika Cann repurposes fragments of climbing walls; nature is repeated and reformed, questioning our relationship to things that are ancient and how modern technologies ‘progress’ our access and understanding of nature, but also may draw us further away from it. Through research, Erika investigates the concept of ‘future strata’, where geology indicates how we are impacting and engaging with a deep-time-future in our everyday life through the Anthropocene. Situated in Devon, her work often references the local geological landscapes, from the ancient granite tors to the ever-changing Jurassic coast, to the hidden lava flows beneath our cities.
Alongside being an artist, Liam Jolly has worked in the music industry for over 20 years, regularly witnessing performers cross thresholds between everyday life, to moments in the spotlight, and back again, fascinated by these momentary shifts. Having worked with buskers, footballers, iconic drum beats and second hand car dealers, Liam has an affinity for found, undervalued and often overlooked materials like car mats, supermarket shelves, tin foil and black bags, using these recognisable materials and cultural references as a bridge between everyday life and the artworld, seeking to find ways for the two worlds to meet. Through repetition and remixing things to the point they become unrecognisable, Liam finds new possibilities; a work made of car mats becomes a horizon of hope on a gallery wall.
Nicky Harwood’s work is concerned with landscape, place and society's increasingly uncomfortable yet expanding relationship with disposable culture and the waste generated , printing predominantly outside embracing rot, decay and mold as part of the process, as a means of subverting the traditional ideas and rules of printmaking. ‘Parachute’ underwent a series of cyanotype printing processes before being allowed to undergo the natural process of decay within Nicky’s compost bin. She then embarked on a journey of repair using reworked prints on various textiles, such as silk, muslin, and organza, using Japanese Boro work and sashiko stitching. The process introduced a dynamic layering of textures and materials, whilst strengthening the fabric and honouring every scrap of material.
Stuart Robinson explores the relationship between idealism and escape. Stemming from childhood experiences of seaside vacations, the work explores the contradictions of the idealism and ‘fun’ presented by holiday destinations as a child and the actual experiences of life as we grow older and the often hidden realities behind the surface. Seaside towns, and especially the arcades that have inspired much of Stuart’s recent work, representing a glorification of consumption and material gain as fun. Yet, these spaces also represent transitionary, liminal places in-between normal life, where anything was possible, with reality left at the neon-guarded doorway. ‘All Things Fall’ is a sequenced neon, designed to represent potential arcade signage. An ever flowing falling of coins, representing the machines within, the constant transition and passing of time but also simply the joy found in a hard won 2p piece falling over the precipice.
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Gemma Mackenzie’s Inflated Responses series looks at allergies and the visual reactions that can occur as a result. Inspired by skin prick and patch testing, Gemma has created reactions within the surface of compressed foam forming patterns that are parallel to changes, whether temporary or permanent, to the surface of the body. The works also explore the differences within the varied ways of testing for allergens, from direct testing on the body or isolating through samples. Gemma is interested in questioning at what point changes within nature become irreversible and have a permanent effect, as a result of becoming overwhelmed and consumed by these events such as climate change, illnesses and growing mould.
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Neil Robinson works with clay as a way to map out an environment over which we have no control, and channels this exploration into the unknown in his own material investigations. He views this process as a co-authorship of transformation; an ever-shifting expression, as in the folding of the wave, shifting of sand, erosion of landscape, lifting of nutrients to feed the dying life above before it falls and rots to the depths. The ceramic forms, coiled by hand into buoy-like objects, have been carried down the cliffs of Whitsand Bay, dropped and rolled along the jagged rocks reaching up from beneath the sand, and carried back up before being fired and displayed, to be stared at like Goose barnacles in the sun.
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Melanie Young is an artist working with ideas of motherhood, inheritance, and female institutions primarily through painting, underpinned by an interest in issues of gender, class and the nature of gatekeeping within society, and how feelings of being an outsider is the result of systemic bias and exclusion. Melanie’s paintings explores hidden female stories, to explore the sometimes unsettling impact of tradition or inheritance on women. ‘Seen Without Gloves’ portrays narratives from Melanie’s personal history; experiences that her mother and aunt suffered that were intended to keep both these working class women subjugated, to ‘know their place’, and affected a transformative, slow and insidious change on their lives.
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Delpha Hudson creates large tapestry-like paintings that become reorientations of the past. Paintings heave with patterns, crowded figures and historical references that assimilate stories and re-create fictions about women, equality, domestic and caring role. Relating to the historic Pannier market, historically a site of exchange, in which the gallery is situated, Delpha has included a basket with paper and pens, and the public invited to add their own story about figures and stories in the painting that connect to their lives.
CAMP is a member-led support and professional development network for artists, arts producers, arts curators and arts writers in Devon and Cornwall. As an organisation, the opportunities offered to members includes residencies, mentoring, crits, talks, support with travel, networking events, exchanges, and exhibiting opportunities. For more information about CAMP please visit www.camp-membership.org
Studio KIND. is an artist-led gallery and project space, originally set up in Braunton in 2020. With thanks to North Devon Council, we are delighted to move to our new central location in Barnstaple Town. Please join us in celebrating at the launch of our new space on Friday 12th January, from 6-8pm
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