In Mid July, Art Etcetera attended a spectacular Exhibition hosted by Blackwater Gallery featuring the works of up-and-coming artists, Fran Williams and Miranda Collins.
The exhibition itself was produced by Her Mark, an organisation which pushes for further recognition of women, and those who identify as women, in the art world (in fact their creative producer, Emily Bull, is featuring as an artist in one of our coming editions). This isn't the first time we've visited Blackwater Gallery, so we won't go into how fantastic of a gallery it is for artists of all forms to present their work (we met hyper realist artist, Ian MacKenzie and abstract artist, Chris Pompa, who featured in our last edition, at one of their events).
Eros
Although the works themselves were superficially mesmerising, it was only once you began to understand how they were made and what they represented, that you grasped their true beauty.
Miranda Collins' piece Mother (Left), for instance, was made by scraping away paint from a metal sheet with a knife - we suggest that you check out her and Fran's video on Blackwater's website for more information on their designs!
Yet not only were Miranda's creative processes unique, but so too were her themes. Our memories for example, can often seem quite dreamlike; our ones from childhood particularly walk upon this tightrope of reality - were they real or did we just imagine them? Using primarily oil to paint fields, trees and child-play, Miranda's works evokes among viewers a nostalgic myriad of emotions which might have otherwise lain dormant for years.
Quite often, people will create things and hone in on their techniques solely for pure joy, yet perhaps the truest of artists are those who produce designs with deep meaning set within them. One such artist is Fran Williams, whose art observes and reflects the complex feelings and ideas that we have of time. 'We need to remind people that there are sometimes things we have no words for', Fran tells me. Such a statement not only reflects the importance of visual story- telling, but epitomises her work.
For we often have no words for time, many think the whole thing is just a construct - getting faster as we get older. Yet what is brilliant about Fran's work is not only how she captures these feelings about time, but helps to alleviate the anxieties we have of it. From the sun and the cosmos to the 'horizon line' between the sand and the sea, Fran's work gets us asking new questions about time and space. In fact, so interesting were her and Miranda's themes that we've decided to create an up-and-coming edition based entirely on memory and time with these brilliant artists included - so stay tuned!
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