24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
Art Inspired By Waste Material At Wolsey Art Gallery Ipswich
By Caroline Lewis
05/01/2006
Image: Shows a sculpture of a large fly that has been slightly squashed.
Collapsed Sculpture by Hannah Greely, 2003. Courtesy Wolsey Art Gallery.
Time, matter and the imaginary are the subject of the current exhibition at Wolsey Art Gallery in Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. Entitled Waste Material, the show is curated by leading British artist David Musgrave and will run until February 26, 2006.
New work by the curator (whose solo show, ‘art now’, was at Tate Britain in 2003) and his contemporaries, including sculpture and prints, is displayed alongside a 19th century lithograph by Georg Scharf, on loan from the Natural History Museum in London.
The lithograph, Duria antiquior (c.1830), features a prehistoric seascape with creature-infested waters and pterodactyls flying in the sky. This is clearly an imaginary vision of a time before homo sapiens dominated the globe.
Image: Shows a photo of a white paper sculpture ripped and twisted into a tentacle form.
Paper Golem No. 3 by David Musgrave, 2005. Courtesy Wolsey Art Gallery.
Going by the sharp teeth of one creature, which are being sunk into the neck of what appears to be a miniature swimming dinosaur, this was an age when reptiles and sharks ruled the earth. In fact, the print was made after a drawing by geologist Henry de la Beche based on fossil evidence of prehistoric life.
Hannah Greely’s Assembly, a papier-mâché stepladder dotted with handmade insects, points in a different direction – to a future where humans are no longer the number one force, if present at all. The delicate butterflies, however, are rather more gentle than Scharf’s crocodiles and pterodactyls.
Image: Shows a photo of a papier mache stepladder dotted with insects.
Assembly by Hannah Greely, 2001. Courtesy Wolsey Art Gallery.
Also featured is a surreal 1940s drawing by Yves Tanguy, which implies another oceanic scene. The odd forms depicted here suggest a sinking ship, but the apparent life forms aren’t recognisably human. The same goes for David Musgrave’s drawings. His sculpture Paper Golem takes a scrap of material and reshapes it in a way that implies a life-form, but retains abstraction.
Rupert Norfolk’s Leaf sculpture shares this indeterminacy of form, while William Daniels and Clare Stephenson similarly nod to art styles of the past in their paintings and drawings, creating mutations that are new.
Three local artists working with found objects and waste materials have also been invited to exhibit their own responses to the theme, under the heading In-disposable.
Saint Dominic with the Cricifix by William Daniels, 2003. Courtesy Wolsey Art Gallery.
Neil Hangar makes sculptural installations out of corrugated card, inspired by piles of cardboard thrown out in the street by shops. Nicola Burrell utilises cardboard, too, but incorporates it instead into landscape paintings of Clacton for In-disposable.
Not just throwaway objects, but throwaway ideas feature in Alex Pearl’s video pieces. His recent work is on display, which includes things discovered in skips with old jokes!
Waste Material has been organised in collaboration with The Drawing Room, London.
Christchurch Mansion
Christchurch Mansion, Soane Street, Ipswich, IP4 2BE, Suffolk, England
Open: 2007:
From Sunday 8th April Christchurch Mansion will open
Monday through till Sunday 10.00am till 5.00pm
Closed: 2007:
Closed Good Friday, 24th to 26th, 31st December and 1st January.
Related Articles
Learn A Lesson In Artistic Housekeeping At Christchurch Mansion
Artist's Record Of Fear Haunts The Remote Orford Ness
Artist Captures Sources Of Energy At Christchurch Mansion
E-news registration
E-mail story to a friend
Tell us what you think
Black Watch Museum Appeal Seeks To Raise £3million
News In Brief - Museums, Galleries And Heritage News
Newly-Accredited Medical College Invests In Mysterious Portrait
Photos Of WWII Codecrackers Go On Sale At Bletchley Park
Painting Returns To Queen Victoria's Dressing Room After 166-Year Absence
Cartoon Awards Ceremony Celebrates UK's Top Scribblers At Mall Galleries
Made08 - The Brighton Craft Fair 2008
Library Thief To Be Sentenced At Wood Green Crown Court Today
New Look For The Relaunched Garden Museum In Lambeth
Write Queer London Competition Holds Inspiration Day At The British Museum
Downs House Darwin Discovery Project Wins Funding Go-Ahead
British Museum Gets Set For Historic Egyptian Tomb Gallery
Stunning Wedgwood Relaunch Celebrates Potteries Heritage
Library Bid To Save Earliest Surviving Score Of Opera In English Language
Ryedale Folk Museum Lands Significant Harrison Collection
Portable Antiquities Scheme Is Fit For Purpose Say MLA
Leading Academics Call For Art Funding Support In Wake Of Titian Pledge
Glasgow Police Museum Edges Closer To A New Home
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.