Nest Residency – January 2022
I’m delighted to be a resident at The Nest, home of Talking Birds at the Daimler Powerhouse in Coventry. I’ll be spending 10 days exploring drawing and mark making with natural pigments, with a focus on photographing the work for reproduction online. I hope to use these techniques to encourage young people to engage with nature by making art out of doors.
Thankyou Talking Birds!
News Archive
Nature on the Line
November 2021
Check out my online exhibition https://natureontheline.co.uk/ which features a new collection of stone carvings inspired by the trees, plants and fungi of Warwickshire woodlands damaged by HS2, the High Speed Rail route. There’s also an interactive map and many drawings completed on location, with videos of the making process.
Artspace Coventry Commission
I’m delighted to have been commissioned to design an enamel brooch for Artspace’s new online shop. The brooches will go on sale with the launch of the shop in mid October.
2020 – CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
a-n artists bursary activities and Coventry City of Culture on hold
The measures taken to prevent the spread of Covid 19 have impacted many creative practices. In February I was delighted to be awarded a bursary from the Artists Information Company (a-n) to study silversmithing with Adrian Hope in Scotland, and to attend the European Silversmiths (Hammerclub) Symposium this spring. Sadly these events have been postponed indefinitely, but I hope to catch up with both later in the year.
I was also really pleased to be contracted by the Thames Festival Trust and Coventry City of Culture Trust to deliver a project in Special Schools, ‘The Story of Water.’ Unfortunately this too is postponed. I’d like to thanks the Heart of England Community Foundation for their support to me in this difficult time.
In the meantime, as I’m lucky enough to have a little workspace at home, I’m planning to start a stone carving project here as my contribution to Culture in Quarantine.
I hope all of your family and loved ones stay safe in these challenging times.
2019
You’ll find me at Ham Parade Market on the first Saturday of every month, selling my jewellery. I’m loving the laid back, friendly vibe of this market and the fact its just round the corner from me. Come along and enjoy some artisan pies, live music, amazing veg and lovely crafts. Moe info here: https://www.hamparademarket.org/
Richmond Art House Open Studios takes place on the weekends of 22/23 and 29/30 June. Once again I’ll be sharing with the wonderful Sue Ribbans and woodcarver Friedel Buecking. Details will be posted on the Councils website here: https://www.richmond.gov.uk/arthouse_open_studios
I’ll also be exhibiting at Strawberry Hill House from 27 – 29 September. Details available soon!
New work for ‘The Extraordinary Life of John Oliver’ exhibition
I’m very excited to be creating four new works for this exhibition. This is a group show of disparate artists from landscape painters to sculptors who all use the River Medway as a theme in their work. The exhibition publicises the forthcoming book ‘The extraordinary life of John Oliver,’ by Frances Beaumont. John Oliver was a trained artist , chef and sailor, best known as the captain of the tug Hobbit. He was born with two short arms, no hands, and only one good foot, and was a well-known and popular character among a wide range of people from yacht and barge owners, lighter-men and pub landlords to artists, engineers and teachers. Frances’ book, due to be published in 2018, tells the story of his life.
Exhibition dates and venues:
Conquest House, Palace St, Canterbury. July 1 – 7 2017
Rose Cottage Museum of Curiosities, Sheerness. July 11 – 29 2017.
Other artist participating include Anthony Oldacre, Mick Hampshire, Frances Beaumont, Andrew Kennedy and Mags Loxton.
For details of the book visit
http://www.ojoliverbook.org/uncategorized/the-remarkable-story-of-owen-john-oliver/
PS
Visitors to the Sheerness exhibition might be interested to know that the stainless steel sculpture located in Beachfields Park, opposite the railway station, was designed by myself in collaboration with Groundwork Medway Swale and local residents. Here’s a snap of it just after installation, in 2001.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Landmark Arts Centre AUTUMN ART FAIR 2014
On Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 October 2014 I’ll be taking part in the Autumn Art Fair at the Landmark Arts Centre. I’ll be showing some of my sculptures, drawings and – a new venture – silver rings there, along with 70 other artists.
The Landmark arts centre is close to Teddington Lock on the River Thames – perfect for combining your visit with lunch at the Anglers or the Tide End pub and a stroll by the river. Teddington is easily accessible by rail from Waterloo or Clapham Junction.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Invalid Displayed Gallery
Press Release
PUNK PASTORALE TO URBAN METAL– An Artist’s Journey
‘I’m interested in the relationship between people and the places they inhabit…I want to explore the surprising, painful beauty that can be discovered in even the most brutalised and abused environments.’
A retrospective exhibition of the work of artist and maker, Amanda Randall, opens at Putney Arts Theatre, Ravenna Rd, London on September 3rd 2013. Entitled ‘Objects from a Landscape,’ this show offers an unprecedented opportunity to view assemblages, drawings and sculptural wall works produced by the artist over more than two decades. The exhibition is free to enter and continues until September 28th 2013.
This surprising and thought-provoking show brings together drawings and assemblages made by a sculptor better known for her public artworks, including ‘Cone Shaped,’ an installation for the Year of the Artist, which incorporated several hundred traffic cones, and the strikingly coloured ‘Five a Day’ in Crawley. Some of the works on display here are dramatic and confrontational; others are more introspective and lyrical. This is a varied and challenging exhibition, guaranteed to provoke a powerful emotional response in the viewer.
Many of the earlier pieces are unsettling assemblages of found objects. Randall worked in post-industrial, depressed North Kent during the 1980s and 90s, as part of the fiercely independent Medway scene which included ‘backwater visionary’ Billy Childish, environmental artist Stephen Turner and Traci Emin. Determinedly anti-elitist, influenced by the DIY ethos of punk and the New British Sculpture of the 1980s, her work from this time combines unidentified industrial components, bitumen, and discarded plastics with organic debris like bones, horsehair and feathers to create a kind of punk English pastorale.
Following her move to London in 2005, Randall’s work became more lyrical and introspective. Much of the imagery is derived from the micro-organisms, tiny plants and lichens which colonise the city, interpreted in calligraphic and precisely wrought steel and silver. However, her metalwork has a beautifully patinated and textured surface and an organic quality which is reminiscent of the encrusted, abandoned artefacts that she pulled out of the Medway during her early career. The charred, distressed wooden backgrounds, pierced, stitched and scuffed surfaces, all suggest processes of decay, growth and regeneration.
For information about the exhibition and venue contact www.putneyartstheatre.org.uk .