Wednesday 13 November 2013

Angie Lewin at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Angie Lewin, Persephone Shore, collage on driftwood
Angie Lewin has been busy. Her new exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park features paintings, screen prints, wood engravings and - my favourite - a series of collages on pieces of driftwood.

Angie Lewin, Festival Mug and Honesty, watercolour
Angie's watercolour drawings are wonderfully cool and elegant, and she acknowledges her debt to mid-century art and design with those precisely dated mugs. But I think her work really takes off when she balances the delicate tracery of natural forms with the strong colours and bold gestures she employs in her printmaking.

Angie Lewin, Lakeside Teasels, linocut
Some of the newer prints stay closer to natural forms, and they do have a lovely feeling of lightness and gaiety. As ever, it's great to see her explore the architecture and aesthetic possibilities of ordinary plants.
Angie Lewin, Ramsons and Campions, screenprint
But I keep coming back to the driftwood collages. I like their simplicity and boldness, and the fact that the artist has had to think carefully about how to work with an awkwardly shaped, three-dimensional ground. I think she had fun making them.

Angie Lewin, Windswept Shore
Angie Lewin: A Natural Line is at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park from 16 November to 23 February. I wish it was closer to Bristol!


4 comments:

Acornmoon said...

The driftwood collages work very well, I have never seen anything like them before, lovely!

Catherine Aldred - Illustrator and Printmaker said...

Can't wait to see her exhibition at YSP. Love her crisp quality of line, perfect compositions and subtle colours.

Paula Youens said...

trying to think how she did them...cut paper from her prints? but then how do you stick to a porous irregular surface like wood? did she varnish the top? very inventive. Angie Lewin is a skilled artist/printmaker who shows that knowledge & love of your subject matter will always prove a winner.

dinahmow said...

I have a print (that is, a commercially printed card) of one of her Festival Mug pieces. Lovely work!