angelagwright.co.uk

ANGELA WRIGHT - ARTIST
info: angelawright@artinst.entadsl.com

"UNWANTED" - ST. LUKE's CHURCH, 64 OLD SHOREHAM RD., BRIGHTON, SUSSEX, BN1 5DD

unwanted items donated by the congregation; Angela's unwanted plastic twine; satin-fabric donated by the church
8 to 26 May 2013

Photos: David Carr-Smith

I came to St Luke's to make an installation not knowing what I would find. I had asked if the congregation would donate unwanted objects - I had in mind unwanted presents or things we buy two of by mistake. 'Unwanted' has a poignancy that extends beyond mere objects to people - it served my wish that the work should provoke emotions. I needed to know what was hidden in the several cardboard boxes of donations. Coincidently they included a three-tiered fruit-stand which (influenced by the fact that a circular chandelier once hung from the East End roof) was raised like an offering and became my installation's central suspended 'mandorla-source'. Through this many metres of twine were threaded, a cascade that spread and connected the miscellaneous objects. It was my wish to elevate the status of all these unwanted things, to make them viable, desirable and freshly needed. Placed on rich satin fabric they became like jewellry in a display box, gorgeous sweets, or weird varigated fungi inter-connected by a mycelium of white twine life-lines.

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 5) - WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION, BUND 18 GALLERY, THE BUND, ZHONGSHAN E RD, SHANGHAI, CHINA
http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/

wool yarn and rope
a work requested by the Campaign For Wool
22 to 28 Oct 2013

Thanks to:
Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct Ltd, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son Ltd - for blending and spinning the wool
Photos: Angela Wright & David Carr-Smith

[IN PROCESS] The third 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations. A hank of wool made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed in site in the Pier 2/3 gallery as part of an exhibition of wool-based design products, the fourth such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

This ver of the wool piece is in a huge art gallery space in Shanghai.

"LEAF BALL" - DULWICH PARK, COLLEGE RD., LONDON, SE21

green-waste prunings & gardening twine plus site
15 Oct 2012 to 15 Mar 2013

Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith

Preparing and making the work [IN PROCESS]

[IN PROCESS] The "Leaf-Ball" was initially made for the Gate-Lodge lawn of Dulwich Park's College Road entry. It utilised seasonal shrub prunings provided by the Park's head gardener; which were incorporated ad hoc in the growing ball ///as received - the resulting surface was changed in colour and structure each time new materials were added. It was first worked in a studio then in situ in the Park, where its changes of appearence and increasing size attracted the attention of///interested the frequent local visitors.

Below are shown two stages of the work, in two locations. First its planned location - the formal Lodge lawn. Second - an enclosed informal meadow.

"SHARED POSSESSION" - WAREHOUSE, 55 GREAT SUFFOLK STREET, LONDON, SE1

flour plus site
4 to 6 July 2012

Thanks to:
"Guerilla Architects" http://www.hiddenborough.org
Photos: Angela Wright

This empty early 19th century warehouse has a curious ownership problem which has prevented its redevelopment: the local council has claim to a 2練 portion of its north end that intrudes beyond the general line of its flanking road's south edge. Internally the ambiguity of this portion of the building is not discernable - Angela however (motived by the potential loss of this part of its space with its two-century accumulation of traces) for the first time in its history made it briefly so. On level two (the least obstructed) she rapidly demarcated the contested area by sieving flour - covering its massive wood in a uniform surface of clean white. By hiding the floor's colour this snowy surface revealed its 'landscape' of physical abrasions, and offered an inexhaustable field of food for mice.

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 4) - WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION, PIER 2/3, HICKSON RD., WALSH BAY, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/

wool yarn and rope
a work requested by the Campaign For Wool
25 Apr to 1 May 2012

The second 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations. A hank of wool made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the Pier 2/3 gallery as part of an exhibition of wool-based design products, the third such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

This ver of the wool piece is in an extremely different location than the conventional art gallery in London. This huge dramatically 'primative' and unadorned pier, whose vast plank floor roofs the harbour's sloshing water and whose high-set strip of windows, set over huge loading doors, admitted beams & shafts of violant sunlight across its surface ...

I decided to turn the work's 'back' to the main central space and the strong afternoon sun, while its arms flowed into the unencumbered 'aisle' side space ...

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 3) - "WOOL MODERN" EXHIBITION, LA GALLERIA, PALL MALL, LONDON, SW1
http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/

wool yarn and rope
a work requested by the Campaign For Wool
7 to 29 Sep 2011

Thanks to:
Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct Ltd, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Richard Collinge and Rachel Storey at Fred Lawton & Son Ltd - for blending and spinning the wool
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: Julian Wright / David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright

A 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations. A hank of wool made (as were the others) by laying down yarn drawn from several cones. This time however the yarn was spun from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the gallery as a contribution to an exhibition of wool-based design products, which constitutes the opening event in a world campaign by the wool industry.

"189 MILES" WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 2) - BRADFORD CATHEDRAL, 1 STOTT HILL, BRADFORD

wool yarn and rope plus site
22 May to 26 June 2010

Thanks to:
Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct Ltd, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for providing the wool
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright

My first "189 Miles" Wool Installation was made in April 2009 in an 18th century London church - All Hallows on the Wall. This new version (but made with the same hank) is in the 15th/19th/20th centuries Bradford Cathedral - at the centre of (what remains of) the wool industry. During its London installation I was often asked "where will the wool go next" I always replied that "I want to take it back to Bradford to the home of my wool sponsors".

I visited the Cathedral and was immediately drawn to the Peace Chapel, it had a special feeling for me, a sense of an island - a safe place. I wanted to add to this Chapel a work that had calmness, stillness, serenity and beauty, combined with a sense of Bradford's history. The wool's softness, warmth and smell spans liftetimes from infancy to old age. In the Chapel is Charles Kempe's Crucifixion window - it became important that the centrally suspended wool hank would also reveal like a portal its central image of a crucified Christ.

"189 MILES" WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 1) - WALLSPACE, ALL HALLOWS CHURCH, 83 LONDON WALL, EC2
http://www.wallspace.org.uk/about.html

wool yarn and rope plus site
18 Mar to 13 Apr 2009

Thanks to:
Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct Ltd, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for giving the wool
Patrick Sweeney and Clive Burton - technical consultants
Photos: Julian Wright / David Carr-Smith

Preparing and making the work

When I first visited All Hallows church I was struck by the soft creamy colour of the ceiling and its flower-like patterns - suggestive of the qualities of undyed wool. I went away with the thought of making a work that connects the ceiling to the floor. Coincidentally the installation was timed to coincide with Easter.

A huge quantity of wool was given me by two generous Yorkshire sponsors: Martin Curtis and Andrew Marshall. Martin Curtis told me the avarage sheep produces around 2 kilos, which when washed loses a third of its weight in grease and dirt. I was thus given - in washed and spun wool the approximate equivalent of 55 fleeces!

The hank of wool that constitutes the bulk of the work was formed over five weeks by laying down parallel threads pulled off wool-wound cones. This 25 metre long, 75 kilo trunk-like mass was hauled up and suspended over the nave by its centre, falling in two 'cascades' that part in a 'doorway' and flood out across the floor. The uncompromising cross of tense rope and knots that bind the giant hank's centre, contrast with the relaxation and complexifying of the released wool, spreading like the foam and streamlets of a beaching wave.

PHOTO: JULIAN WRIGHT

PHOTO: MARCO PEREIRA

"PAPER WINDOWS" - A GROUP EXHIBITION, INNOVATION GALLERY, CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS INNOVATION, PROCTER STREET, LONDON, WC1
http://www.csm.arts.ac.uk/innovation.htm

paper with pencil and scalpel drawing
9 to 18 Dec 2008

The work reproduced the gallery windows in artists' paper. Tests began in Sep 2008 and I started making the work in Nov 2008.

Half the gallery is windows - so demanding of wall that they limit hanging to small images, or the room's cluttered inner side. Seventeen window panels bracket the space - a procession of fourteen 3-row panels whose inner ends slow to a stop via panels of 2.

After the cement-blinded windows of the "Powerhouse" exterior, these gridded walls of translucent glass presented another type and degree of enclosure and obscurification. Necklaced by small works, the big pool of dark floor offered a space to reflect them.

I drew the 17 window-grids with pencil and scalpel at 1:1 scale on artists' paper and layered them on the floor like a fallen homage - only their leaved edges showed their number. The twin 2-row "misfit" grids were flung 'randomly' across the "standard" 3-row stack. The excised paper 'panes' had curled into tubes which huddled near the reclining grids, pining for r犨e and positions.

."POWER HOUSE" - INSTALLATION ON STREET FACADES, R. K. BURT ARTISTS' PAPER WAREHOUSE, 54-58 UNION STREET, LONDON, SE1

site plus cable-hung 'blinds' of PVC-polyester with "Grafisoft" adhesive-vinal drawings
begun as a public-site installation for the London Festival of Architecture 2008 (LFA Power House)
28 June 2008 to 20 Jan 2009 / 28 June 2009 to 3 Sept 2009

Thanks to:
R.K. Burt & Co Ltd., Wholesale Paper Merchants, 57 Union Street, London SE1 1SG - for loan of building facades
Siddons Van & Car Hire, 191D Perry Vale, SE23 - for logistical assistance
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Gary Black

Preparing and making the work

In late 2007 I discovered this Union Street 1930𠏋 ex electricity sub station, now R. K. Burt artists' paper warehouse. The blinded rendered windows of this sombre building reminded me of canvases waiting to be painted. The windows had probably been blocked at the beginning of the war, the spaces they once occupied are clearly defined.

I chose to install blinds for these blind windows. These blinds relate to several aspects of the building, most importantly they have an energy which will transform it. The 5 panels are a rhythmical sequence: 4 tall ones on the main fa蓷de - the first wider, the next 3 a repeated beat; then around the corner facing east, the 5^th - squarer, placed high up, 㣃loating� - provides a full stop. The blinds connect with the building𠏋 past through colours associated with electricity, live wires and cables - the sub station previously humming inside is evoked on the outside. They also express an affinity with the ghosts of its window mullions. Finally, in their role as drawings they refer to the building𠏋 present use by artists� paper merchants.

The building is situated close to several derelict houses encased in scaffolding, despite this there is a feeling of a village at this end of Union Street - the road splits in two as it approaches Southwark Bridge Road and the remaining island has a large spreading plane tree, caf�, outdoor seating, while overhead the trains trundle past. I wanted to add something dynamic to this end of the street, something that speaks of summertime!

PHOTO: GARY BLACK

INSTALLATION AT "1DEA5PAC7", 157 BELLENDEN ROAD, LONDON, SE15
1DEA5PAC7@aol.com / 07958543698

torn and knotted wedding-tulle in context
## Mar to 28 Apr 2007
.

This is a reuse of the material remains of 'Church-Work 3' [see below]; brought into an environment where it is made to relate to practical inventions - a context described by its curators as 'an interface between retail and the aesthetics of conceptual art and design'.

"RAG-RUG" - ACCOUNTANT'S OFFICE, LONDON, N17

plate-shards and glue
June 2006 to --- current
viewable by appointment: john@zipress.com
.

I was suprised at Angela's wall-work's unexpected 'extra' effects. It has a weird likeness to a rug-like object hung on the wall, an impression contradicted by the fact that its myrid little pieces are undeniably stuck to the wall ... emphasised of course by a cascade of glue-threads, which however simultaneously reinforce the impression of frayed rug! Its ambiguity is also emphasised by its slight tendency to lean (this accumulated as it was made and was unresisted) as if carelessly nailed up at a slight angle.

"OVERLOOKED" - GREEN DRAGON COURT, BOROUGH MARKET, LONDON, SE1

fragments of unfired woven porcelain clay plus site
a public-site installation for the London Architecture Biennale 2006
17 to 25 June 2006
.

Borough Market is a complicated, seemingly chaotic, sequence of joined irregular spaces, lanes and small roads, among the pillars and under the iron trusses and decking supporting a confluence of rail-lines issuing from London Bridge and Cannon Street stations.

A very busy and vital market thrives here - intensely bustling and full. On empty days with the stalls shuttered and produce boxed behind wire grills one is aware of old dirt, refuse in corners and the damp cold of decorated but industrial iron - then people only pass through what has become simply a vague container of routes that connect to elsewhere.

In the most forgotten unnoticed fenced-off and dirt-accumulating corner of all - yet in full and public view of any primed to see those parts of a scene which for most are edited-out by habits of practical use - I decided to install a work which contradicts its site's character and 'fulfills' its primacy of location.

This filthy rat-ridden corner holds a psychological fascination for me and seemed to fit the Biennale𠏋 theme of 'Change'. The space is strangely overlooked by a single domestic window which gives it a feeling of a courtyard which hardly sees the daylight. Gigantic steel railway beams on cliffs of Victorian yellow brick encase its dirt floor. The space is filthy from years of uselessness and neglect, yet spatially contiguous with the bright, colourful, vital and thronged Green Market, and incongruously facing across it the tree-edged close of Southwark Cathedral, an enclave of relaxation, calm and reassuring kitsch.

I made a fragile and ephemeral floor of unfired porcelain pieces, propped against each other, moving out from the rear of the space like a luminous flood or a fleece thrown down in the gloom. Bearing down above massive rivet-studded girders skirt a small triangle of bright sky that mirrors my triangular floor. My addition to this site must be viewed with its context - some of its relations with the site were forseen, others (even obvious ones) have emerged - the subconscious, initially perceived as fascination with the 'atmosphere' of the place, has apparantly also been influencing decisions while I made the work.

It is the extremes that I am interested in. I hope that you see that I have changed the site's dynamics, cleaned and purified it, possibly given it the feel of a side-chapel with an inclosed peace. It looks towards the cathedral with its blossoming trees, honeysuckle, and passion flowers growing on the walls. Perhaps the rats, grime and the smell of urine recedes for a moment.

'CHURCH-WORK 3' - ST GILES' CRIPPLEGATE, BARBICAN, FORE STREET, LONDON, EC2

torn and knotted wedding-tulle
May 2005 to Dec 2006
.

"50 DEGREES NORTH" - KEYWORTH CENTRE ATRIUM, LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY, KEYWORTH STREET, LONDON, SE1

knotted stainless-steel wire
Apr 2005 to --- current
viewable 2009 - Mon to Sat from 9.00 to 18.00 hrs
.

This work was promoted by its sponsors as "... part of a new arts initiative launched by London South Bank University as its contribution to the development of contemporary cultural activity in the South Bank area - it will be the first major art work displayed in the Keyworth Centre, and will inaugurate a programme of art exhibitions and events across the university".

On my first encounter with the Keyworth Centre atrium I was immediately attracted to the huge eight-story bank of gridded windows which form the facade of the building and to the height and vastness of the atrium. In response to this interior I chose to work with a suspended cube made of delicate stainless steel wire nets. The lightness of this construction provides a counterpoint to its site - something that takes on the assertive visual challenge of the building but stays separate and ephemeral.

During the day the installation interacts with the changing light through the glass facade and at night reflects the atrium lamps. The effects of light on my work has always been important - I like the changes and surprises - the idea of the installation being suddenly lit by a blast of sunlight.

3000 metres of stainless steel wire was bought coiled on a drum; this was cut into 3m lengths and knotted into 20 nets that were raised into the space above the building's entrance.

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