Branching Out
Hastings Artist Sophie Shaw previews a major new exhibition in St Leonards to which she is also a contributing artist. Her company The House of Cultural Curiosity has also helped organise the exhibition which was curated by Colin Booth, director of the Electro Studios Project Space.
While we are still living in very complicated times, it has been fabulous to get a sense of our creative community buzzing again in recent months. And for that reason it feels particularly special to be one of 50 artists with connections to Hastings and St Leonard’s who are exhibiting in a group show being held at Electro Studios Project Space (esps) this September. A broad range of artists have come together around the theme ‘The Tree of Life’. A range of media and approaches will be on show, in works by artists from a host of different backgrounds and at different points in their careers – celebrating the cross section of creativity which exists in this area.
Writer, critic and broadcaster Edward Lucie-Smith said “Hastings-St Leonards has long been an artists’ community. In troubled times, creative people feel the need to talk to one another. This is an event about an art community talking to itself, yet also, at the same time, throwing open the discussion to any visitor who cares to come and look. It is also pre-eminently about what is happening to visual art right now here in Britain, with maybe a sideways glance at what might possibly be happening here in the future.”
Director of esps, Colin Booth, chose the theme to focus on renewal, regeneration and coming out of Covid. The Tree of Life looks to examine the ways in which artists draw upon trees to reflect upon nature, the human condition and the fragility of life.
Among the work in the show will be painting by Mathew Burrows, sculpture by Hermione Allsopp, conceptual work by Eugene Chapman, illustration by Clare Fletcher and photography by multidisciplinary artist Babalola Yusuf. There are a huge number of contributing artists – more than fifty in all – including those from as far afield as New Zealand. Trees are venerated and dissected, and drawn on as inspiration, familiar friends, metaphor and material.
• The Tree of Life runs from September 18th but check with the gallery for full details of times and dates: electrostudiosprojectspace.co.uk
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