Titled 'A Passionate Nature', Velarde are delighted to introduce the inaugural group exhibition responding to the show’s leading artwork Ophelia After Millais, 2018, by British photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten. This spectacular staged photograph pays homage to one of the 19th century’s most dramatic paintings by Pre Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais and is the starting point for a group exhibition that explores the drama and beauty of the natural world.
Taking centre stage alongside Julia’s work are a series of sculptures by eminent Royal Academician Peter Randall- Page, whose work explores the relationship between man and nature and the sophisticated geometry of organic forms. These exemplary works are carved from Venetian marble and demonstrate the artist’s lifelong study of the principals that underpin the complex mathematics of natural structures. Also on show are paintings by London based artist Sue Williams A’Court, whose ‘appropriationist’ landscapes borrow from historic works and explore ideas of the visual sublime through a combination of painting, collage and graphite drawing. Her work is held in various private and public collections including the V&A in London. Painter Carrie Jean Goldsmith creates expressionist paintings through abstract layers and luminosity of light, creating imagery that is both compelling and ambiguous. Her work embodies the language of nature through the use of rich deep hues. The third exhibiting painter is Wiltshire based artist, Bethany Kohrt who builds up layers using paint and drawing on wood or canvas until a rich texture evolves with a beautiful history of addition and subtraction. This reduction of elements is both bold and considered, both radical and cautious.
Ceramics on show include work by Herefordshire based potter Clare Conrad, whose chalk white, sky blue and sea green stoneware vessels reflect the raw beauty of weathered coastal surfaces and natural erosion, exploring the point of balance between existence and decay. The show’s collection of ceramics by Rosa Wiland Holmes are influenced by her childhood amid the isolated landscape of Denmark’s Bornholm Island in the Baltic Sea. Her pieces explore the shapes, textures and colours of that unique natural setting, of sea foam on the sand and rain glistening on granite, expressed through the subtle interaction of clay, oxides and glaze.
Contemporary craft includes new work by Jayne Armstrong, who is a maker of functional and sculptural objects in wood. She is known for turned works created from green oak, which changes and distorts from its original shape as it dries. Once each piece has achieved its final form, the work is bleached or charred before being finished with oils and waxes to enhance the beauty of the natural oak surface.
