Kurt Jackson: Orwell’s Jura, Morag’s Skye

duration: 11:03 minutes

 

Kurt discusses the inspiration behind the new exhibition which features two series of paintings from two different residencies on Scottish islands by Kurt Jackson will be shown for the first time in London this December. One painted in and around George Orwell’s former home, Barnhill on the coast of the Isle of Jura – a remote and isolated house where time has stood still and the location for the writing of Nineteen Eight-Four.

 


 

 

PERFORMANCE: Ti Parks ‘Duffle Coat’

duration: 3:32 minutes

 

“The enigma of Ti Parks’ ‘Duffle Coat’ is never explained, its choreography is loose and of no fixed time, the performer can be replaced and the coat itself is interchangeable” Sue Parks

‘Duffle Coat’ has been performed at the Barbican gallery, the Kurt Schwitters Merz night at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Marcus Cambell Art Books adjacent to the Tate Modern and at the opening of the National Gallery Victoria amongst other venues worldwide.

 


 

 

Kurt Jackson ‘The Green Ways’

Filmed in Summer 2020

duration: 9:45 minutes

 

Landscape and environmental artist Kurt Jackson as he paints in the landscape for his exhibition ‘The Green Ways’ at Messums Yorkshire and Messums Wiltshire in 2020/2021.

 


 

 

MAKING INTRODUCTIONS: Kennedy Muntanga

Filmed March 2021

duration: 11:37 minutes

 

Introducing dancer and choreographer Kennedy Muntanga as he prepares his new performance ‘Greater than Lion’ to be premiered at Messums Wiltshire in September 2021.

 


 

 

 

INTERVIEW: with Artist Alan Cotton

duration: 6:00 minutes

 

An interview one of Britain’s leading landscape artists as his exhibition ‘Coast’ opens at Messums Wiltshire in April 2021. The exhibition of over forty paintings by Alan Cotton include seascapes of the coasts of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, County Kerry, Jersey, the Isle of Skye and New Zealand.

 


 

 

 

MAKING INTRODUCTIONS: Introducing the Art of Egg Tempera: with Antony Williams

Filmed January 2021

duration: 13:16 minutes

 

Williams works almost exclusively in egg tempera – a painstaking, exacting medium in which egg is used instead of linseed oil as the binding medium.

 


 

 

 

STUDIO STORY: Sculptor Jørgen Haugen Sørensen

Filmed in Summer 2018

duration 1:48 minutes

 

Sculptor Jørgen Haugen Sørensen during the summer 2018. The Arrival, work in progress, was later cast in bronze. Filmed for an exhibition at the JH Willumsen museum.

Jørgen Haugen Sørensen, born in Copenhagen in 1934, is one of Denmark’s most esteemed and decorated sculptors. Since the age of nineteen, he has lived and worked in various European metropoles such as Paris, Verona, and Barcelona. In 1971 he moved to Pietrasanta in Tuscany, Italy, which has served as his primary residence ever since. Throughout his entire artistic career he has consistently and independently focused his attention on the human condition in society.

Filmed by Elena Mehlman

 


 

 

INTERVIEW: Jørgen Haugen Sørensen

Filmed in August 2020

duration 13:57 minutes

 

Jørgen is one of Denmark’s most esteemed and celebrated sculptors. This podcast features Jørgen interviewed by the Danish writer, editor and artist Morten Sondergaard ahead of his show at Messums London this Autumn.

Jørgen Haugen Sørensen, born in Copenhagen in 1934, is one of Denmark’s most esteemed and decorated sculptors. Since the age of nineteen, he has lived and worked in various European metropoles such as Paris, Verona, and Barcelona. In 1971 he moved to Pietrasanta in Tuscany, Italy, which has served as his primary residence ever since. Throughout his entire artistic career he has consistently and independently focused his attention on the human condition in society.

Members can view until end October

 


 

 

FILM: Finding the Essence: The Sculpture & Drawing of Bridget McCrum

duration: 21 minutes

 

Filmed, directed and produced by the acclaimed film maker Mark Kidel, the documentary takes an inside view of one of our greatest living sculptors. Visiting her Dittisham home and studio, Mark films and interviews Bridget as she embarks on her latest projects including a return to two-dimensional work.

Mark Kidel is one of the world’s leading documentary film makers on music and the arts. His most recent film, Becoming Cary Grant (shown at Messums Wiltshire) was an Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2017. He works mainly in the France, the UK, Germany and the USA. His work is regularly selected in leading international festivals as well as honoured worldwide. Recent films include a film about Englishness with the writer Martin Amis.

 


 

 

TRAILER: Sonia Leber and David Chesworth: What Listening Knows ‘Trio Anthills’ 36s

Filmed in summer 2019

duration 36 secs

 

What Listening Knows will be an immersive 3-channel audio and video installation by artists Sonia Leber and David Chesworth. The research and filming was undertaken here in Wiltshire in summer 2019, when Sonia and David were our artists-in-residence. What Listening Knows creatively interrogates different concepts around the act of listening, particularly the concept of ‘the microphone’s gaze’, which shifts the idea of the ocular gaze, or camera gaze, into an acoustic dimension and will be exhibited on large screens at Messums Wiltshire in December 2020.

 


 

FILM: Elisabeth Frink

Filmed in summer 2020 (includes archive footage)

duration 3:39 minutes

 

Produced by BBC South, the film features archive interview footage with sculptor Elisabeth Frink in her studio at home in Woolland, Dorset. Also included are interviews with Hannah Hooks, the head of programming at Messums Wiltshire and Hannah Davies who reconstructed the studio inside the tithe barn at Messums Wiltshire.

Courtesy of BBC South

 


 

 

FILM: Man of Stones

Filmed in 2019

duration 2:22 minutes

 

A short film by the international award-winning photographer and film maker Bill Jackson. Bill photographed Laurence Edward’s sculpture and documented his studio and foundry for three years and made a film looking back at a year of studio production centred on the making of Man Of Stones an 8ft sculpture destined for the Sainsbury Centre. The result is a stunning piece of visual poetry that explores the creation and development of the sculpture.

Filmed in black and white and on hand held cameras, Jackson captures the energy of Edwards at work, visually he almost becomes one of the sculptures he is making. Edwards taps in to our deep and ancient relationships with ourselves and the landscape, trapping it in his work for people to see and to remember.

Bill Jackson is an international award winning photographer and film maker having recently shown at the Venice Biennale and winning Gold and Silver at the Moscow and Tokyo International Foto Awards respectively.

 


 

 

STUDIO STORY: Tuesday Riddell

Filmed in March 2020

duration 3:56 minutes

 

A virtual tour of Tuesday Riddell’s studio as she works on her new pieces through the fascinating processes of gilding and japanning. These new artworks were planned to preview in our 2020 New York show.

Our Emerging Talent artist from 2019, Tuesday Riddell defies easy classification. Her work is attractive, decorative and fantastical yet rooted in dark themes of mortality and contemporary environmental concerns.

Through processes of japanning and chinoiserie these creations are grounded in dramatic tones of black and gold. The ornate surface of the works, together with the depth of narrative, are traversed together in a rare marriage of the imagined world and the decorated surface.

 


 

 

STUDIO STORY: Ceramic Artist Barbara Gittings

duration 5:09 minutes

 

Ceramic Artist Barbara Gittings demonstrates the making of Nerikomi bottles.

“During my earlier career in the fashion industry as a designer and pattern cutter, I began to explore clay as an alternative medium to fabric. In fashion, the layering of textiles and the power of the cut merge to find new balances and forms, the biomorphic and geometric held in tension. My work in clay continues to explore this. I’m fascinated by the geometry in nature, especially as growth and random chaotic forces skew and distort the initial perfect symmetry, leading to biomorphic and irregular forms.

I work with a grogged porcelain, using Nerikomi techniques. This involves adding oxides or stains to the clay to colour it and then joining, slicing and rejoining layers of colours to build up patterns through the clay. I then slab-build the pieces. After sanding and biscuit firing to 1046 degrees, the pieces are re-sanded and then further decorated, using various resists. They are then smoke-fired and polished.”

 


 

 

Film: ‘A Gathering of Uncertainties’

Filmed in 2019

duration 7:07 minutes

 

A film by Phil Cairney recording sculptor Laurence Edwards as part of a study into the male psyche and Edwards’ ongoing project to create ‘Colossus’, one of the largest bronze sculptures ever made and an edifice to evolution. Includes interview footage with the artist.

 


 

 

INTERVIEW: with sculptor Elisabeth Frink

Produced by BBC South, 1985
Courtesy BBC South

duration 3.15 mins

 

An interview with Elisabeth Frink in the studio at her Woolland home.