This installation was made in the Deiglan Gallery, a cultural-events hall that opens from the street into a single transverse theatre-like space. From left to right across its entry area a prosceniumed stage-like space faces a huge wedge of stair serving as a tier of audience-seating, which at its far top corner accesses the studio/living-place of the Akureyri Gil-Society's 'artist in residence'. 

Angela's installation was two physically/visually separate but mentally related parts ("Fryst" (frozen) is their combined title) : a staged studio that replicated (and transformed and froze) aspects of Angela's work-place of the preceding 24 days of her residency, and a transformation of its giant facing 'stair' into a model cascade of frozen 'water'.  

"On day one of the residency I discovered I could enter the Deiglan Gallery via an interconnecting door which is accessible from my studio. It was strangely exciting to go through the rather stiff and heavy door, a bit like Alice in Wonderland ! - I entered a space which immediately called to me to walk down its steep flight of large wooden steps ! - I felt an immediate connection with those steps, and I have been working on installation ideas for this particular space ever since.

In the preparatory stages of an installation I make lots of sketches and try-outs - some more developed than others, some complete works in their own right - until finally I arrive at a point where I know where I am going, with conviction."  

Objects that are thoroughly embedded in our world of useful familiar things were forced to relate and participate with objects that had emerged from another part of the mind, one that is normally non-objectified. These latter objects do not evoke a familiarity of recognised use, but induce a need for justification via associational metaphors. The depicted situations have become somewhat unsettling and weird, not least because the participation of objects that ‘mean nothing obvious’ in these tableaux of the normal, is seemingly so deliberately arranged. 

 

 

STAIR PICTURE  -  DANIELLE SALAMON HOUSE, LONDON


wool 'tops' sandwiched in glass 'clip-frames'
01 Feb 2016 to --- current

Photo: David Carr-Smith

 

 

"PLOT -3 136"  -  "SILENT MOVIES" GROUP EXHIBITION  -  Q PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1


discarded black garments and black felt 'flowers', on black car-parking plot (-3 136)
16 to 18 Oct 2015

Photos: Angela Wright  /  David Carr-Smith

LINK: Making the work

The exhibition of around 100 artists was arranged on the lowest circular floor (-3) of the car-park under this central London gardened-square. The curators specified that works must be achromatic in colour - this ensured they were not perceived as separate from their achromatic location (which was thus not demoted to mere background exhibition space). Consequently this extraordinary location added its unique experiential characteristics to the exhibition: a sense of the unspecified depth of this accumulation of art, isolated from memory of an outside, deeply sunk underneath the busyness of streets; the sense of a secret vault enhanced by the claustrophobic compression of the low space; the endless circling of the curving view without clear locational clues or rememberable exits ... always only able to apprehend a segment, ones communion with immediate exhibits was made special by repeated discovery and loss around the curving road.

Around the outer and inner edges of the circular car-park floors were precise slightly shiny black rectangular parking-plots, contrasting with the pale grey concrete and displaying their stark white numbers. A few,  tucked into occasional structurally awkward spaces, were skewed parallelograms. I chose the most tense of these distorted rectangles as the base of my work. 

The black 'flowers' for "Silent Movies" were made from many items of black clothing and over 1000 felt ribbons. The use of black challenged me - its heaviness and association with funerals were almost prohibitive in a year of distressing losses. It was important to relate to the location and I found the restrictions, for instance the curatorial imposition of black or white; the unalterable tube light at the front of my work which plunged its rear into darkness; the skewed shape of my chosen plot, all extremely interesting - as a result things happened within the work which I could not have foreseen. 

My work is very much about placing and I worked in situ on "Plot" for nine hours without stopping - I think this intensity and exactness could be experienced by its viewers. The work provoked conversation, it was likened to Baudelaire's 'flowers of evil'; to charcoal; to a fantastic magnification of the granular surface of the car plot itself; to a grave; to a submerging depth. My partner likened my abandoned clothes to temporarily abandoned cars: without their purpose both these body-shells become anomalous. 

 

 

"ONCE OUT OF NATURE"  -  RURAL SITES & HARTS LANE STUDIOS, NEW CROSS GATE, LONDON, SE14


garments, canes, locations, activity 
In cooperation with Julian Wright
16 Dec 2014  to 14 Feb 2015

Photos: Angela Wright  / Videos: Julian Wright

LINK: Making the work (videos: Julian Wright & Angela Wright)

The results of this collaboration between Angela Wright and photographer/video-maker Julian Wright were presented in Harts Lane Studios. The exhibition was the culmination of four days of work on two contrasting rural sites near Leigh-On-Sea, Essex - the first on the tidal mud of the Thames estuary and the second on fields overlooking the estuary below Hadleigh Castle.

 

 

STAIR INSTALLATION AT FLEMING COLLECTION  -  13 BERKELEY ST, LONDON, W1
 http://flemingcollection.com/


hand-wound wool balls, plus site

Commissioned by the Fleming Collection
6 Jan 2015  to 14 Feb 2015

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct and Adam Curtis of Real Shetland Co - for the wool
Photos: David Carr-Smith

This work was commissioned for the staircase of the Fleming Collection, with the intention that it should 'connect' the street-level gallery with the first floor exhibition space and relate to what is concurrently displayed there: the 'Large Tree Group Tapestry' [see last pic]. In reference to this tapestry I chose naturally coloured wool ranging from grey, through cream to chocolate brown. The installation is made of numerous hand-rolled balls of this undyed-wool - small varicoloured ones (whose making was assisted by volunteers) and large cream ones. The small balls form a flat circular wall 'picture' that both focuses one's destination and relates to the circular cut outs of the balustrades plugged with the larger balls of cream wool that rhythmically pace one's ascent. While this wall piece and balustrade intervention soften the hard lines of their practical and severe environment, they are also in acute positional tension with features of the stair, most obviously with the two circular landing-lamps and the wooden newel-post balls.

 

 

"WOOL WALK" INSTALLATION  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA


seven wool hanks (two natural white / five color dyed), plus site
dimensions (approx): hank length: 30.5m / work length: 23m

Commissioned by the Wool Marketing Board
5 to 12 Oct 2014

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct and Adam Curtis of Real Shetland Co - for the wool
Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright

This overhead wool installation in Southwark Cathedral's "Lancelot's Link" passage acts as a 'guide' towards the Campaign For Wool "Interiors Collection" [see last pic]. The installation is a very straightforward introduction to the elaborate objects displayed in that temporary exhibition. Its coloured hanks, as if hung up to dry, are simply dragged over the support wires, they are even still tied in their wool bands - it signifies: 'this is how the wool arrives, and these [objects in the exhibition] are what these long simple hanks can become'. Angela said "I think the installation has a job to do and does it well - here, in this introductory role, the wool is not completely subject to skillful control, its hanks inevitably jostle for position, their colours shifting in dominance along its length. I enjoy the way it illustrates the 'provisional' like an in-process painting". The whole thing is rhythmical, the V-shaped wires march down the length and the wool seems to slither from wire to wire, hanging off at the ends as if it wants to reach the floor. It's quite disconcerting overhead, somewhat 'too alive' - much 'faster' than the slow architecture of the passage.

 

"40 DAYS"  -  SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA
http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org
 
wool yarn, plus site (reredos, altar, chancel)
dimensions: hank approx 25m / reredos 15.3m

Commissioned by Southwark Cathedral
05 Mar to 18 Apr 2014

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, 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 / Julian Wright

This installation consists of large hanks of wool hanging from the apex of the 15.2m high altar reredos, covering the central gilded figures of Jesus. It partners "another hour", an installation by Edmund de Waal in the retro-choir beyond the reredos. (The work combines the two wool hanks given by Martin Curtis: the original used in the first wool installation in "Wallspace" 2009 and the '40 countries' wool hank used in the London, Sydney, Shanghai, Soeul exhibitions [see below].)

JULIAN WRIGHT

JULIAN WRIGHT

 

 

WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 6)  -  WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION,  ARA  ART CENTRE,  INSA-DONG,  SOEUL,  S KOREA
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
18 to 25 Nov 2013

Thanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, 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

This fourth 'derivative' from the original Wool Installations. Based on a hank made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site: the top level of the Ara Art Centre, Seoul, as part of an exhibition of wool-based design products, the fifth and last such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

 

 

"UNWANTED"  -  ST. LUKE'S CHURCH,  64 OLD SHOREHAM ROAD,  BRIGHTON,  SUSSEX,  BN1 5DD
 
unwanted items donated by the congregation + Angela's unwanted plastic twine + satin-fabric donated by the church
dimensions (approx): h: 1.6m / w: 3.3m
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 and 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 meters of twine were threaded, a wriggling 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 jewelry in a display box, gorgeous sweets, or weird variegated 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 ROAD,  SHANGHAI, CHINA
 http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
 
wool yarn and rope

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
22 to 28 Oct 2012

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

This third 'derivative' from the original Wool Installations. Based on a hank made from a blend of wools acquired from 40 different countries. The final object was formed on site in the Bund 18 Gallery Shanghai, as part of an exhibition of wool-based design objects, mainly fashion. The fourth such exhibition in a world campaign by the wool industry.

 

 

"LEAF BALL"  -  DULWICH PARK (WEST ENTRY GATE LODGE),  COLLEGE ROAD,  LONDON,  SE21
 
green-waste prunings & gardening twine plus site
15 Oct 2012 to 15 Mar 2013

Photos: David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright

LINK: Making and installing the work

The "Leaf-Ball" was initially made for the Gate-Lodge lawn of Dulwich Park's College Road entry lodge. It utilised seasonal shrub prunings provided by the Park's head gardener; which were incorporated as received onto the growing ball. The resulting surface 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 appearance and increasing size attracted the attention of the frequent local visitors. 

Two stages of the work are shown below.

 

 

"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 2½m 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 inexhaustible field of food for mice.

 

 

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

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
25 Apr to 1 May 2012

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

The second 'derivative' from the previous Wool Installations.  It is based on a hank 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 version of the wool piece is in an extremely different location than the conventional art gallery in London - this was a dramatically 'primitive' 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 shafts of violent 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

Commissioned by the Campaign For Wool
7 to 29 Sep 2011

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 constituted 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, 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 lifetimes 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,  LONDON,  EC2
 http://www.wallspace.org.uk/about.html

wool yarn and rope plus site
dimensions (approx): h: 7m / w: 15m
18 Mar to 13 Apr 2009

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

LINK: 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 average 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 meter 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, contrasts with the relaxing 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

paper with pencil and scalpel drawing
9 to 18 Dec 2008

Photos: David Carr-Smith

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 limited hanging to small images on the room's cluttered inner sides. 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. 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 themselves into tubes which huddled near the reclining grids, pining for rôle and positions.

 

..

 

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

site plus cable-hung 'blinds' of PVC-polyester with "Grafisoft" adhesive-vinal drawings
dimensions: x3 blinds = h: 6.4m / w: 2m // x1 blind = h: 6.4m / w: 2.4m // x1 blind = h: 3.8m / w: 4.58m
Initially a public-site installation for the London Festival of Architecture 2008 (LFA)
28 June 2008 to 20 Jan 2009  /  28 June 2009 to 3 Sept 2009