From 1-23 May, the 39th edition of Oxfordshire Artweeks offers both a big virtual festival and more than 200 pop-up-shop, garden and studio venues across the county in which painters, potters, photographers, silversmiths, textile and glass artists, furniture-makers and more are displaying their wares. Amongst the wealth of art on show, Esther Lafferty uncovers twenty-first-century art and design inspired by the past, made in clay and precious metals, and the stories of those who created them.
“When I was a child, I wanted to be an archaeologist, discovering amazing forgotten treasures like Indiana Jones, and at the same time I also dreamt of becoming an artist, expressing myself using other means than voice and words,” she smiles.
My creations are an expression of emotions, fragments of experiences lived, inspired by treasures that are all around us. Each has a story behind it, from the winged creations inspired by French Art Nouveau to the textured effects reminiscent of the worn aspect of archaeological artefacts dug up from the ground. I also like to let my imagination be guided by memories of inspiring places I have visited or quotes from books and poems I have read.”
In Watlington’s Town Hall ceramicist Andrea Brewer explains her fascination with the past.
Then in my late teens, I met a bunch of bikers in the local pub and joined a Viking re-enactment group. Most people thought I was barking mad,” she chuckles “But it was perfect escapism and for several years I spent weekends travelling around the UK and Europe fighting mock battles, spending time in living history villages and learning about their way of life and the tools and treasures. Funnily enough, I think I was destined to be drawn to it – it later turned out that I have extensive Viking ancestry! The Vikings had such a sense of adventure, and I love the idea of riding across the waves on a Viking longship, its prow adorned with a dragon or the curls of a snakehead. The ship figurehead is such an iconic form, and one that I love to use in my art.
Andrea also finds herself drawn to ancient history, mythology and Celtic knotwork and these influences are clear in the fluid curves and sweeping spirals for which she is becoming best known.
For Artweeks, she is exhibiting a series of hand-built sculptures primarily using a stoneware clay which combined with dry mottled glazes of her own invention gives each a textured quality resembling lichens found in nature, or rusts and patinas that natural forces create on man-made materials. Each, in a gentle tarnished blue-green, with rust red, could be hewn from the earth, a giant remnant of mythical men who roamed the landscape.
“Apart from finding the spiral a beautiful and pleasing form, I am intrigued by its symbolic significance,’ she explains. ‘Spirals can be seen extensively in nature in the form of plant structures, patterns of growth, and in the movement of the sea and weather patterns. Prehistoric cave painting and tribal carving demonstrate that even the earliest humans instinctively revered the spiral motif and understood its elemental significance: modern science has since proven it is tiny coils of DNA that underpin life while spiral galaxies stretch to the edges of the known universe.
While some of my work is purely sculptural, I lean towards creating functional art. It’s satisfying to create pieces that not only look beautiful and interesting, but which also have a practical use in the home or garden, and the functionality of an object can enhance its beauty. Candlelight reflecting on a sculptural form can highlight its colour, shape and form; different flowers or plants can add to and alter the appearance of a vase or pot; water travelling over a sculpture can add movement, texture and sound.”
You can meet Chloe and browse her jewellery collections in Iffley and Stanford-in-the-Vale (Artweeks venues 99 & 162) and find Andrea and her ceramic creations in Watlington Town Hall (Artweeks venue 221).
For more on these artists, to explore the venues and to enjoy daily virtual art trails visit artweeks.org