Borrowed Landscapes and Stolen Histories: Carole King and Glenn Ibbitson

A collection of pieces created using photographs, recycled objects and personal memory triggers

Time Piece

Mixed Media Installation

Time, like an ever rolling stream,

bears all its sons away:

They fly, forgotten as a dream

dies at the opening day

Isaac Watts

Memory Box

This box contains the texture of a building:

Each surface is captured as evidence collected of a time and a place.

Each print located on a plan.

Stored in a box made from the buildings floor boards and locked.

Memories of others, stored in photograph albums, passed through generations, un-named, undated become generic triggers for events, places and times in our own family histories

Doorway
35 x 25 cm
oil on canvas

Nothing grows in our garden, only washing
20 x 30 cm
oil on canvas

Images inspired by the weaving industry

The interaction between the landscape and its people created commercial enterprise: ultimately leaving memories, industrial archaeology and working industries

Outside the sun shone and the grass was green

To work cotton efficiently it was necessary to maintain a high temperature, above 20°C (68°F) with high humidity (up to 85%), obtained by keeping all windows tightly shut. Before 1833 there was little ventilation in the Mill.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/quarry-bank-mill

The Mill

Artists book inspired by the The National Wool Museum

drawing, textiles, collagraph,silkscreen

and a series of mixed media pieces combining prints, drawings, photographs and paper ephemera.

Real Welsh Flannel Fancy Drapery Mixed media approx 30 x 30 cm

The theme of interaction between landscape and man regularly occurs in my work:

The landscape itself holds a rich mixture of ideas to be mined; layers of manmade and naturally occurring features, combined with evidence of human settlement, industrial, social and political history.

Experimental layered collagraph prints, inspired by random, small sections of ordnance survey maps have grown to larger, more involved pieces, which incorporate recycled ordnance survey maps and pamphlets documenting local geology, combined with original print.

Some pieces use an intricate collage of field shapes, cut and assembled together which follow the pattern of lanes and hedges. Each field shape is cut from a section of collagraph printed onto a previously printed paper- creating a complex surface of lines, symbols and colour variations. Other pieces, use rectangles and triangles joined together, using decorative stitching, in a traditional Welsh patchwork quilt pattern.

The cartographers interpretation of the landscape as a two dimensional representation is precise and factual, each element previously defined by convention, yet seen as a whole these pieces become aesthetically pleasing in their own right - these 'quilts', also incorporating additional information are equally visually seductive .

'Quilt' Pieces
Pembrokeshire Patchwork	Moelfre
40 x 30 cm	55 x 31 cm
Mixed media

3D Collage

The use of recycled postcards combined with paintings and layering to produce 3d images in both formal box pieces and in tunnel book formats

Sheep in the Bathroom	Kitchen Window	Quarry Farm

3 Dimensional collage using recycled postcards, textiles, paint and card.
works by Glenn Ibbitson in this exhibition can be seen at http://smokingbrush.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/collage-random-fragments-glued-together/

Borrowed Landscapes and Stolen Histories: Carole King and Glenn Ibbitson will be showing at http://www.kingstreetgallery.co.uk/

2nd-30th November 2013

open 10-5 pm not Sun

In residence- Nant y Coy

Back home after a week in Pembrokeshire, meeting new people, talking bees with beekeepers from the other side of the UK ( what a different story!) and taking time to work on a new project.
The rain kept off for a few days- long enough to walk and sketch from the surrounding landscape- fabulous views from the top of 'Maiden Castle' and picturesque farmhouses and barns tucked in the wooded valleys.

West Ford Farm

Poll Cairn and Maiden Castle

It seemed the ideal opportunity to experiment with linocut-something I had not done for some years- reasonably quick and easy to print.

Nant y Coy Arts have a different artist/craftmaker installed in their studio each week throughout the summer. There is easy parking, fabulous local walks and a great cafe for afterwards  at the same location. A gallery shows work by Margaret Merritt- not to be missed are her mixed media landscapes -a joy of light and colour.

Bluebells

At the beginning of last year I had a request for a painting of bluebells- possibly in and oval format.The bluebells weren't out at the time and I needed a few references and a really good look at the sort of areas where they grow. Our trip up to Ulverston and the Lake District for Printfest at the beginning of May gave me just the opportunity I needed.

The woods were filled with a soft blue haze, dappled spring sunlight and the perfect opportunity for information gathering. This is the resulting painting and there are several others on the easel awaiting completion- I haven't painted an oval version yet but perhaps the circular one will do...