Bowland exhibition at Platform
Within a Landscape, Dawn Youll, slipcast glazed earthenware, 2008 (listings image, Viewfinder, Dawn Youll, hand built ceramics, 2009)
As part of the Bowland Arts Festival, the Platform Gallery in Clitheroe is putting on an exhibition of craft inspired by the local landscape until 20 June
At the centre of Bowland – An Inspirational Landscape is a ceramic installation by Dawn Youll, specially commissioned for the event. Youll was asked to make a piece that responded to the nearby Forest of Bowland, an area of fells and moorland that was designated a site of outstanding natural beauty in the 1960s. ‘She was asked to create something that would inspire local visitors to the area and look at issues surrounding ecology and sustainability’, explains Katherine Rodgers, arts development officer at the Platform Gallery. The result is a free-standing stoneware sculpture made in three separate sections which together – they are displayed in a line – are designed to convey a sense of place. In the foreground is the first section, Viewfinder – a highly glazed stylised tree stump, behind which can be seen in the distance, Middle Management, which depicts the outline of a barn against hills and green fields. And then right at the back is Above and Beyond, a chunky block of slip cast clay representing a more abstract, visually ambiguous mountainous background.
Youll’s work is shown alongside a group of objects linked by their makers’ interest in the landscape in general. Look out for sustainable furniture by Philippe Handford and Paul Case, Sarah Jerath’s ceramics made from recycled aggregates and Ann Goddard’s textile sculptures.
www.ribblevalley.gov.uk/platformgallery
www.bowlandarts.co.uk
