ANGELA WRIGHT
- ARTIST
info: [email protected]
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ART INSTALLATIONS ... p1......(VER: 30-05-24)
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"NESTING" - INSTALLATION IN A LONDON GROUP
OPEN EXH - 'COPELAND
GALLERY', 133 COPELAND RD., LONDON, SE15 35N
scrap-wires; yellow string;
gold-paper; bought plastic egg sprayed with gold paint
- plus
its location
approx 43 x 40 x 23
8 to 26 Nov 2023
Thanks to: London group
Photos:
David Carr-Smith; Angela
Wright
"Nesting" is Angela's second* 'installation' intended to be commensurate with a mixed art exhibition - here the 'London Group Open' in the Copeland Gallery, Peckham. This time the sculpture is 'submerged' in the only corner in the exhibition building's interior that has survived as a tangled muddle of accumulated cables, cable-supports, crumbling structural elements. The nest with its gleaming egg was almost unnoticeable, looking out from its uniquely high and cluttered corner across a large volume of the exhibition that displayed a well arranged collection of individual art works, paintings, videos, assemblages, and plinthed sculptures.
[* ref: "Feeding Frenzy" 01-2018 + etc.- ref below]
[Pic 1 below: is "Nesting" as an individual studio object. Pics 2 / 3 are its Copland Gallery installation]
"NEST"
-
SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL HERB
GARDEN, LONDON, SE1 9DAA
wire, twine, paper, bought plastic
egg sprayed with gold paint
- plus
its location
approx 90cm x 65cm
1 June 2023 to ---
Thanks to: Southwark Cathedral
Photos:
David Carr-Smith
LINK:
Making the work
The Nest is made from reflective wire with plastic gold eggs, installed in the main branch-junction of a huge plane-tree in Southwark Cathedral's E-end herb garden. It can be viewed from the cathedral herb garden, the south-west pavement of London Bridge approach, from the restaurant between them (ref pic 3).
The installation should work as a visual/mental focus to an Interesting view consisting of Southwark Cathedral�s east facade; the cathedral herb garden, its adjacent restaurant. The pavement at this point - as an approach to London Bridge and City; as crossing place to the station; as an access to Borough Market - serves as the focus-point of the above complex view - it is effectively a balustraded viewing-terrace and the "Nest's" position in this fascinating and building-framed visual-field should catch attention, the Nest is the alien object in the view, it may sparkle in the sunshine and have an impact that conveys fun and joy ... and perhaps the idea of nest-building as something we all have in common will resonate.
"THE LIGHTS WENT OUT" - 4 WINDOWS OF THE SW BAY OF CHRIST'S CHAPEL, GALLERY RD., DULWICH, LON., SE 26
coloured transparent adhesive plastic
each lower window approx 48cm x 86cm5 July to Oct 2022
Thanks to Alison Firth for enabling & assisting the dismounting of this work
Photos: David Carr-Smith & Angela Wright
Last Christmas I made a small window installation in my house consisting of carefully placed squares of coloured translucent adhesive film. I started to experiment with light, noticing how the film's colours spread over nearby surfaces.To take this work further I began to look for possible public sites, this led me to Christ�s Chapel where I met Alison Firth who has an enthusiasm for realising ideas. In this chapel I saw a visually impressive window made in memory of a father and beloved son killed in war - I enquired if I could make a work here about loss. I chose a set of plain-glass windows just inside the south door, flanked by lists of soldiers who lost their lives in the 1914 war.
My personal experience of bereavement was the loss of my Mother. We shared a close relationship. She was gentle, sensitive, kind, with a huge sense of fun - someone who could make me cry with hysterical laughter. She loved to tell stories of her life which I never tired of re-hearing. She was wise and courageous in adversity, my confidante - I could tell her anything. She loved to sing and there was always a stash of licorice-allsorts in hiding. After she died I 'closed down', I couldn�t bear to recall these experiences, it was as if the light had gone out of my life and it was only some time later that I was able to allow my memories to resurface and celebrate her.
"ALTERNATIVE STOPPING OFF PLACE" - A FRONT GARDEN (NEXT TO 'MAYOW PARK') - RECREATION RD., LON., SE26
painted plastic flower-pot trays on bamboo canes supported by white-painted bricks
max height 244cm x group length: approx 210 cm6 May to Aug 2019
Photos: David Carr-Smith
A joke work driven by the idea of birds who (as if !) need a pausing perch before they finally take up a real residence in the adjoining tree-rich park. These utterly inappropriate perches: plastic plant-pot dishes precariously joined to the tips of vari-height canes anchored in white building-bricks and painted in 'garden' colours, are an ironic affront to the hopes of bird-fancying suburban gardeners.
"FEEDING FRENZY"
- USED AS AN INSTALLATION - IN 1: 'A.P.T GALLERY' EXH. - 6 CREEKSIDE, LON., SE8 4SA;
IN 2: LONDON GROUP EXH., 'CELLO FACTORY' - 34 CORNWALL RD., LON., SE1 8TJ
shredded art-group exhibition catalogue
& market-stall tarp grippers
approx 56cm x 20cm x 5cm
Made approx 01-2018
Used as an 'installation' in two exhibitions: 09-2018 (APT
gallery) // 13-12-2019 (London Group - Cello Factory)
Thanks to: APT
Gallery & London Group
Photos:
David Carr-Smith
At
first this was an isolated 'joke' piece: frantic fish contest the carcass of a catalogue in an exhibition ocean.
Made from the shredded catalogue of a group art-show and a pair of market-stall
canopy grippers it could be perceived (for instance) as an uncomfortably concentrated depiction
of a now
irresolvabl
Feeding
Frenzy takes as its subject the dis-unifying conundrum of a mixed exhibition and presents itself as an added sculptural object in
that show. However in its role as an 'installation' it is the only piece in that
exhibition
that relates to and expresses the whole show as subject-matter. It should
(ideally) be placed 'anywhere' in such a show (like a pill swallowed into a
stomach upset by a mixture of food ... it is not itself food - it has a calming and
unifying action on the mix of food).
[Pic 1 below: is "Feeding Frenzy" as an individual
studio object. Pics 2 / 3 are its installations]
"GARDEN COCOON
SPACE"
- SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL HERB-GARDEN, LONDON, SE1 9DAA
twigs & garden-twine; plus
existing stone-font & ruined walls, herb-garden & its location
dimensions: length 4.40m / width 3m / height 2.70m / font height 0.98m
1 Jun to
2 Sep 2019
Thanks to: Southwark Cathedral;
Mark
(gardener);
Southwark Park (assistance)
Photos:
Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith
The �Garden Cocoon Space� for Southwark Cathedral�s herb garden is an
installation which relates to its environment and may facilitate discussion of the experience of memory. For me it
is a return to childhood when the family�s garden shed housed a wind-up record player and
in the distinctive smell of wood and sunshine I shared special childrens conversations. This memory prequels the �Cocoon� which
aspires to be a protective enclosure that dilutes the surrounding hectic city.
The �Cocoon� is a visual focus for the sunken herb-garden and indeed for its whole visible location. It is the only example of an otherwise unrepresented type of practical building - conceived by someone as ignorant of
building techniques as a child in a sandpit - a primitively personal hand-made architecture whose construction is reminiscent of �gothic� forms and which thus ingenuously critiques the historicist stone Gothic that confronts it. Its
pointed structure of twigs gathered from local parks and wedged between the stone remains of an ancient chapel spatially frames a stone font that
reflects in its bowl images of the assertive buildings that surround it. Facing
inwards it mirrors the glass point of the "Shard" and outwards the
pointed bays of the cathedral's east facade.
INSTALLATION (GROUP
EXHIBITION: "PROTOCOL") -
Q-PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1
white-painted bricks, red-painted dowels, red wool
binding, red-chair, plus
dark grey car-parking plot
parking plot dimensions: 3.80m x 2.25m
05 to 07 Oct 2018
Photos: David Carr-Smith
"RESTING
PLACE" - (GROUP EXHIBITION:
"NOTHING ENDURES BUT
CHANGE") -
ST JOHNS CHURCH
(GRAVEYARD), 73 WATERLOO RD., LONDON, SE1
tissue-paper & supporting trees, plus location
dimensions: distance between trees approx 3.20m
05 to 25 Jun 2018
Photos: Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith
- ST PETER DE BEAUVOIR CHURCH, NORTHCHURCH TERRACE, LONDON, N1
INSTALLATION (GROUP EXHIBITION: "EMBRACING THE UNDERDOG") - Q-PARK CHINATOWN (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), NEWPORT PLACE, LONDON, W1
"CRASH BARRIER" - (GROUP EXHIBITION
: "CRASH") - Q PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1
"WATER MARKS"
- RIVER DARENT, WATER-MEADOW, SHOREHAM, KENT
Angela was invited to add to The London Group's 'Sculpture Trail' which involved many Shoreham Village gardens. She chose to install a work in one of the streams that flow through the idyllic park-like 'Water Meadow'. Her's was the work that least impacted on its site -
the least noticeable commensurate with conserving an identity.
The twigs were pushed into resistant gravel, from left to right along the moving stream, each
was allowed to discover a posture supported by its neighbours ...
It was as if the 'fence of twigs' collected commonplace phenomena: each twig
made a tiny downstream bow-wave / the naked twigs sparkled in the
summer sunshine / they captured tiny marching feet of yellow leaves, all
right pointing / became decorated with webs (in mid-stream! - did spiders
parachute from the overarching trees?) / and their
reflections opened into deep inverted spaces muddled with glimpses of the
sun-blotched stream-bed.
BELLS CELEBRATION
- SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON, SE1 9DAA
wool + site
dimensions:
length
approx 20m
Commissioned by Southwark Cathedral
09 Jan 2017
Thanks
to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
Photos:
Angela Wright / David Carr-Smith
"FRYST"
("FROZEN") INSTALLATION - GALLERY DEIGLAN, KAUPVANGSSTRAETI,
AKUREYRI, ICELAND
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'.
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
"PLOT -3 136" - (GROUP EXHIBITION: "SILENT MOVIES"
) - Q PARK (UNDERGROUND CAR-PARK), CAVENDISH SQUARE, LONDON, W1
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
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
"WOOL WALK"
INSTALLATION - SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA
"40
DAYS"
- SOUTHWARK
CATHEDRAL, LONDON BRIDGE (S END), SE1 9DAA
http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org
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.
WOOL INSTALLATION (ver 6
) - WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION, ARA ART CENTRE, INSA-DONG, SOEUL, S KOREAThanks to: Martin Curtis of Curtis Wool Direct, Bingley, West Yorkshire - for the wool
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
Photos: David
Carr-Smith
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
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
"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
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
WOOL
INSTALLATION (ver 4) -
WOOL MODERN EXHIBITION, PIER 2/3, HICKSON ROAD, WALSH BAY, SYDNEY,
AUSTRALIA
http://www.campaignforwool.org/woolmodern/
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
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
Patrick Sweeney - technical consultant
Photos: Julian Wright / David Carr-Smith / Angela Wright
"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
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
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!
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"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
..
."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-vinyl drawings
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
LINK: Making and installing the work
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�ade - the first wider, the next 3 a repeated beat; then around the corner facing east, the 5th - squarer, placed high up, �floating� - provides a full stop. The blinds connect with the building�s 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�s 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!
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