Abstract
Exhibition Dates: 7th September 2024 - 14th November 2024
Exhibition Venue: TELOS Box, 150 Main Street, St Andrews, Fife, UK
A second variation of an earlier artwork first shown at the 201 Gallery in the summer, and a continuation of my research exploring the interior as an expanded practice through sculpture and installation. Sticks v2 was exhibited at the TELOS Box, 150 Main Street, St Andrews, Fife with curator Liz Crichton and was invited to be part of FLAXFest 2024 public engagement programme, specifically the 'Saintly Progress, a linen pilgrimage, St Andrews' event and at the invitation of Dr John Ennis at Journeys in Design. The exhibition, event, and artist talk took place on Saturday 7 September . Exhibition ended on 14 November 2024.
STICKS is a sculptural installation and a second variant of an earlier output first shown at the 201gallery (30 June -04 Aug 2024) which has been subtly reconfigured and augmented with one for the TELOS Box gallery in St Andrews (07 Sept – 14 Nov 2024) and each seeking to promote research through a public engagement event. STICKS (v2) is collection of seven found, 3D carved and hand-turned wooden walking sticks set in a dias and offering a lateral site-specific rereading of the interior, purpose and recognisable structure of Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic red K6 telephone kiosk where once the body was held static and the voice ‘travelled’ via a telephone conversation and now the phone wanders with us. Sticks is a sculptural installation which continues the artist’s exploration of the interior as an expanded practice recalibrated through sculpture, installation and drawing and explores the contemporary pilgrimage in seven symbolic sticks in response to the ‘tele’ of the telephone e.g., covering distances and the far, far off and the locations long history as a site of religious pilgrimage. The Sticks exhibition at the TELOS Box is part of the FLAXFest 2024 public engagement programme, specifically the ‘Saintly Progress, a linen pilgrimage, St Andrews’ in collaboration with Journeys in Design and was accompanied with an artist’s talk on 7 Sept 2024.
In walking, there is an escape, a finding, a peace. Looking from the banks of Dundee towards the rolling hills of Fife one is filled with a yearning to walk; to walk away from one’s locality and being anchored to the here and a desire explore the distant over-there. Sticks offers a lateral response to the ‘tele’ in telephone and meaning of the far, far off, and in operating over distance through sculpture and installation. This place of the far off is reached through a continuous meandering that leads one away from oneself, one’s surroundings but always, it seems, accompanied by the walker’s ‘familiar’- the stick.
Evoking this elemental stick at first sight suggests a vague familiarity, a potential usefulness, but not quite. These are sculptural objects as artistic ‘props’ consciously and subtly enlarged that prop up the body in motion yet are exhibited as inanimate, inaccessible forms encased in a glazed interior vitrine, at rest and objects waiting patiently inside the K6 to be taken outside like a dog needing a walk.
Each stick has a stature and a story, a persona accentuated through the exaggerated form of the seven distinctive handles. These hint at a new and fictional vocabulary of sticks to reveal the familiar (walking) stick in unfamiliar ways - from the medieval pilgrim’s staff, curved shepherds crook, a bishop’s crozier or the contemporary hillwalker’s carbon fibre hiking pole. Materially, these remain in their natural raw timber state, humble, in a sense unfinished and undecorated. Sited in the private/public setting the installation is simultaneously enclosed yet exposed to the public gaze of the passer-by meandering through the town. Sticks acts as a shrine for sticks which pays homage to the contemporary walker seeking access to the far, far off, as a marker on the pilgrim’s way and a reminder of the regions long history as a site of religious pilgrimage.
Exhibition Venue: TELOS Box, 150 Main Street, St Andrews, Fife, UK
A second variation of an earlier artwork first shown at the 201 Gallery in the summer, and a continuation of my research exploring the interior as an expanded practice through sculpture and installation. Sticks v2 was exhibited at the TELOS Box, 150 Main Street, St Andrews, Fife with curator Liz Crichton and was invited to be part of FLAXFest 2024 public engagement programme, specifically the 'Saintly Progress, a linen pilgrimage, St Andrews' event and at the invitation of Dr John Ennis at Journeys in Design. The exhibition, event, and artist talk took place on Saturday 7 September . Exhibition ended on 14 November 2024.
STICKS is a sculptural installation and a second variant of an earlier output first shown at the 201gallery (30 June -04 Aug 2024) which has been subtly reconfigured and augmented with one for the TELOS Box gallery in St Andrews (07 Sept – 14 Nov 2024) and each seeking to promote research through a public engagement event. STICKS (v2) is collection of seven found, 3D carved and hand-turned wooden walking sticks set in a dias and offering a lateral site-specific rereading of the interior, purpose and recognisable structure of Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic red K6 telephone kiosk where once the body was held static and the voice ‘travelled’ via a telephone conversation and now the phone wanders with us. Sticks is a sculptural installation which continues the artist’s exploration of the interior as an expanded practice recalibrated through sculpture, installation and drawing and explores the contemporary pilgrimage in seven symbolic sticks in response to the ‘tele’ of the telephone e.g., covering distances and the far, far off and the locations long history as a site of religious pilgrimage. The Sticks exhibition at the TELOS Box is part of the FLAXFest 2024 public engagement programme, specifically the ‘Saintly Progress, a linen pilgrimage, St Andrews’ in collaboration with Journeys in Design and was accompanied with an artist’s talk on 7 Sept 2024.
In walking, there is an escape, a finding, a peace. Looking from the banks of Dundee towards the rolling hills of Fife one is filled with a yearning to walk; to walk away from one’s locality and being anchored to the here and a desire explore the distant over-there. Sticks offers a lateral response to the ‘tele’ in telephone and meaning of the far, far off, and in operating over distance through sculpture and installation. This place of the far off is reached through a continuous meandering that leads one away from oneself, one’s surroundings but always, it seems, accompanied by the walker’s ‘familiar’- the stick.
Evoking this elemental stick at first sight suggests a vague familiarity, a potential usefulness, but not quite. These are sculptural objects as artistic ‘props’ consciously and subtly enlarged that prop up the body in motion yet are exhibited as inanimate, inaccessible forms encased in a glazed interior vitrine, at rest and objects waiting patiently inside the K6 to be taken outside like a dog needing a walk.
Each stick has a stature and a story, a persona accentuated through the exaggerated form of the seven distinctive handles. These hint at a new and fictional vocabulary of sticks to reveal the familiar (walking) stick in unfamiliar ways - from the medieval pilgrim’s staff, curved shepherds crook, a bishop’s crozier or the contemporary hillwalker’s carbon fibre hiking pole. Materially, these remain in their natural raw timber state, humble, in a sense unfinished and undecorated. Sited in the private/public setting the installation is simultaneously enclosed yet exposed to the public gaze of the passer-by meandering through the town. Sticks acts as a shrine for sticks which pays homage to the contemporary walker seeking access to the far, far off, as a marker on the pilgrim’s way and a reminder of the regions long history as a site of religious pilgrimage.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publisher | TELOS Box |
| Media of output | Other |
| Size | 2000 x 600 x 600 |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Keywords
- pilgrimage
- expanded practice
- community
- sculpture
- installation
- interiority
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Arts and Humanities
