Exposed at Blackwell
The result of a month-long project by Laura Ellen Bacon at Blackwell, the Lake District Arts and Crafts House, can now be seen in its full glory (until 30 September)
Bacon has created a large-scale sculptural installation made out of her trademark willow which clings to the exterior of the Ballie Scott-designed house. Called Exposed, the sculpture flows from under the guttering of a small corner turret, nuzzling past a window and then oozing on downwards towards the terrace before reappearing on the terrace’s lower retaining wall. The effect is faintly bizarre, as if some alien monster has morphed itself onto the clean lines of the house, but this contrast between the organic and the geometric is what much of Bacon’s work is about. She says, ‘The merging of my organic forms with linear architecture appeals’, adding, ‘the existing structures are the host on which my forms grow.’ Her works are built up piece by piece using individual stems of willow to create weighty – Bacon calls them ‘muscular’ – objects which sit somewhere between sculpture, fine art and craft. But although they are dramatic in scale and impact, their inspiration comes from the humble nest, a natural form that Bacon has long been fascinated by.
www.blackwell.org.uk
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