Contemporary Fine Art Exhibition

‘Trial & Retrieval’
at The World of Glass Museum St Helens Merseyside England
14th May - 10th July

From May 2011 The World of Glass, will play host to the talents of five celebrated UK contemporary artists in a new exhibition ‘Trial & Retrieval’ whose inclusion is set to offer extra addition to this already distinguished award winning visitor destination.
The show is coordinated by artists Lesli Sharples and Caroline Dalton. Collectively every artist considers ideas about importance’s, remembrances and legacies in inspiration and so positions their work purposefully within this museum domain and likewise when each is seen to chronicle their story; the concept of ‘traces’ is often intrinsic in influence.

Robert Williams & Jack Aylward-Williams offers the visitor a look at ‘Disjecta Fragmen Communitis’ a project which gathers together shards of weathered or broken glass from different locations and contexts worldwide; material from which this father and son collaborative team have subsequently collated, curated and present as a collection of glass fragments and objects in depository. To help them, they also enlisted the international support or friends and experts from the worlds of archaeology and art: their aim to create sort of comparative museum of this material intended for exhibition and conceived specially for St Helens as a centre for the development of Glass Manufacturing in the North West of England during the Industrial Revolution. Glass is ‘desirable and dangerous, fragile and robust, valued and worthless, ancient and modern, it both reveals and obscures’.

Kevin Phillips paintings depict exquisite renderings of images which centre on tracing the complexities of individual consciousness, ‘memory’ or recollections. In the main his investigation explores how to capture a fleeting moment: whilst similarly endeavouring to encapsulate impressions, sensations, events, time in its many guises and the relationships between past and present from those moments in recall. His paintings are personal, vibrant and multi-layered and show a particular private place assembled together by a precise and balanced arrangement and re-arrangement of symbolic figures & elements in composition; which allow for a perceptual richness and saturation of colour to radiate at first view.
These paintings seem akin to a sort of stage with the viewer being drawn inwards to watch the layering of moment and imaginings. However, on closer inspection the viewer becomes aware of the degree of markmaking and realises that every surface within is covered with an abundance of patterns, dots or stripes in repetition which create an exquisite tapestry for the eye, captivating and infusing our curiosity as onlookers and making us commit to our own singular moment in time, with each individual painting.

Entering into Lesli Sharples’ miniature worlds reveals artworks rooted in a fascination of the properties of ‘light’ and visual perception and a desire to investigate the interdependencies between science and art, resulting in artworks being presented as intricate light-sculptures. The tiny worlds viewed through optical peepholes depict both light and movement as physical phenomena as well as dioramic realms drawn from the remnants and past pages of history and literature in the transcription of political and humanitarian issues. Existence of these hybrid worlds is dictated by concept and design to force the real world to collide with fantasy and the only means of entry is through the faculty of sight and the conscious and the unconscious mind. Viewed by one person at one time, spectators are enticed by intimate and voyeuristic experiences offering light-drenched landscapes constructed to scales of 1:250 inside dioramas as small as nine centimetres square whilst they appear disparately larger and therefore momentarily believable.

Caroline Dalton’s work explores ideas about ‘models’ and involves the hand-making of carefully executed scaled exhibits, prototypes or devices. Almost all of her work without exception is made using white signature materials; echoing ideas about concept, materiality, preservation and museology in operation. Her work considers the position of the museum uniquely; to chronicle and reflect realms of scientific, historical or artistic value, where she converges thinking about museum with the notion of archaeology; paying testimony to human culture through the fi ndings of the ‘man-made’ - or ‘material culture of the day being recovered and analysed in order to learn more about ourselves’.
Her pieces synthesise these ideas and parallels thinking about surveillance and scrutiny, however instead of an object of antiquity her chosen model is commonplace; ready to stimulate debate about our own material culture in analogy. Her work considers equals & opposites, pressures and mechanisms and alludes to connotations of change - spotlighting a future or new, but also giving glimpse to latent antitheses: of scarring, extracting, ‘traces’ or the ‘left behind’.

‘Trial & Retrieval’offers a veritable treasure trove of media which conjure the ‘imaginings’ whilst serving to reveal or possibly even obscure, our understandings of human activity and culture.

SHOWING
The World of Glass
Chalon Way East
St. Helens, Merseyside, England
WA10 1BX
Tel: 01744 22766
Fax: 01744 616966
www.worldofglass.com

EXHIBITION DATES
Show Opens Saturday 14th May - Closes Sunday 10th July
Opening hours: 10.00 am - 5.00 pm (closed Monday’s except on Bank Holidays)
The World of Glass museum charge for admission - contact for current entrance prices

FURTHER INFORMATION
Contact the Co-ordinators Lesli Sharples: Land: +44 (0)1228 712252, and/or
Caroline Dalton: Mobile: 44 7856 820680
Info Online at: http://www.worldofglass.com/index.php?part=exhibitions_events&sub_part=Trial and Retrieval
Exhibition Curator: Hannah Longworth, The World of Glass

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS
Lesli Sharples
Awarded Member: The Royal British Society of Sculptors
www.leslisharples.co.uk
Email: mail@leslisharples.co.uk

Robert Williams
Internationally acclaimed Fine Artist & Academic
www.aylwardwilliams.com
Email: info@aylwardwilliams.com

Caroline Dalton
Fine Artist, Designer & Curator
Email: carolinedalton1@hotmail.com

Kevin Phillips
Internationally acclaimed Fine Art Painter
Email: kevin_phillips52@yahoo.co.uk