COME SEE COMME CA at The Lowry Hotel

1 FIRST STREET | MANCHESTER | M15 4RP | EX DATES: 16.07.21 - 05.10.21

 

Exhibition #002 at The Lowry Hotel brings together three artists who take nature as their subject matter, with three very different outcomes. The exhibition is open to all daily from 10am - 10pm. Bob in, check the exhibition out, HASHTAG #commecaart into your social media posts and let us know what your favourite artwork is!

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JO MANBY

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Jo Manby paints imaginary scenes in which flowering plants blossom across subtle, shimmering backgrounds, where birds and butterflies alight on twisting stems and branches. Wild and cultivated flowers are captured in a refined delineation.

 

Different emulsions are used to develop chalky or satiny coloured grounds for intricate paintings inspired in part by nature writing and a renewed interest in noticing the small environmental details all around us. British hedgerow wildflowers and birds like chaffinches and jays are often overlooked or taken for granted, but they have a miraculous beauty of their own. Brought up in the countryside, Jo aims to revisit and celebrate this magical quality in her work. 

 

In her other current paintings, she looks further afield, for example the Eastern bluebirds in cherry blossom or the bewitching Long-tailed Paradise Whydahs in an African desert rose tree. Jo is influenced by the historic chinoiserie style that conflates Chinese and British design, particularly its ornamental flowering trees, intricate curvilinear and arabesque forms and layering of subtle but intense colour.

 

Jo’s hand-painted Wild Rose Screens are an example of how her work fits well into a fashionable interior. Undertaking commissions for mural painting in domestic or commercial settings, and for bespoke items such as multi-panelled screens, the decorative aspects of her approach to painting, inspired by nature, are foregrounded.

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EMILY SEVILLE

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Emily Seville is a visual artist and maker working predominantly in ceramics and watercolour painting. Her work is concerned with our relationship with and connection to the natural world, often focusing on our intrinsic link to the land and the mark we are making upon it. 

 

Through her work she aims to envision a more harmonious and balanced relationship with the natural world. She tries to maintain an ecologically focused practice through the materials she uses, examining them from a sustainability perspective, while exploring the benefits and positive impacts nature can have on our mental and physical wellbeing. Within this she has created site-specific work that incorporates ideas of the place, and has recently explored rooting site in her work at the following residencies, Rucka Residency in Latvia and Guapamacataro Centre for Art and Ecology in Mexico. On a more personal and local scale Emily has been creating work focusing on her Granny’s garden, drawing from her grandmother’s plant knowledge and her emotional connection to the place to create personal pieces that connect both to the garden and their relationship.

 

Emily seeks to find connections to the Earth through her artistic processes. All of her ceramic pieces are hand-built, expressing the tactile nature of clay and the presence of the artist. The incorporation of natural elements, such as leaves, within her process allows her to reference both form and texture through the materiality of her mediums. 

 

Her recent watercolour pieces are inspired by research into the positive impact natural patterns can have on mental wellbeing. Referencing the mandala form within her paintings, she uses repetition of pattern to create visual soothing paintings. Emily’s painting technique allows her to emphasise the materiality of the watercolour, drawing out the tones to create forms that are soft-focused while still having dimension.

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JACQUI SYMONS - SLOW LANE STUDIO

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Slow Lane Studio forages, cultivates and uses plants to create colour for textiles, paper, printmaking and pigments. 

 

Created from a desire to be more environmentally-aware, buy and consume fewer products and generate less waste, Jacqui Symons began exploring natural colour and dyes in 2018. She researched and developed the use of plant-based pigments for oil-based printmaking inks and from there expanded into making her own watercolours, pastels, inks, screenprinting pastes and dry powdered pigments from plant sources.

 

In 2019, Jacqui trained under Jenny Dean to learn about the use of natural dyes with textiles and yarns, drawing on Jenny’s 40 years of experience in this field to develop further knowledge and understanding of this increasingly relevant and valuable industry.

 

Jacqui created Slow Lane Studio to provide resources, information, practical advice and workshops focusing on natural dyeing, plant-based pigments and plant-based artist colours. Alongside working on creative projects and commissions, she is developing a pigment garden and a plant pigment library as a reference and resource for other artists.

 

The Dye Plant Series is a set of screenprints showcasing Jacqui’s drawings of dyeplants such as Indigo, Woad and Madder.  The colour in each screenprint is produced directly from the plant shown with the black produced using charcoal from willow grown in the UK.  In Madder (Rubia tinctorum), the red comes from the roots of the plant.  

 

Blues are obtained from the leaves of Indigo (Persicaria tinctoria) and Woad (Isatis tinctoria).  Woad has been grown and used as a dye in the UK for hundreds of years though there are many varieties of Indigo grown all over the world.  In Weld (Reseda luteola) the yellow comes from the plant tops and flowers though a green can also be achieved by adding iron to the mix. Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) flowers produce a bright orange and Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) creates strong yellows from both the berries and the bark of the plant. 

 

The screenprinting paste used with the natural pigments to print these pieces is made from wheat starch rather than an acrylic base, which creates tiny particles of plastic in our water-system.

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PLEASE CONTACT COMME CA ART DEALERS FOR ANY ENQUIRIES. 

 

CLAIRE TURNER | claire@commecaart.com | T: +44 (0) 161 273 5495

 

CCA GALLERY 5TH FLOOR | HOPE MILL | POLLARD STREET | ANCOATS | MANCHESTER | M4 7JA

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