20 JUL – 20 AUG 2019 | Floor 1
Inspired by ancient methods of painting this exhibition features works which draw on Egypt’s ancient landscape and culture. New paintings address the moors and coastal spaces around his studio in Cornwall. This exhibition follows on from O’Carroll’s solo show at the Galerie Roger Katwijk, Amsterdam in 2018.
21 JUN – 24 SEP 2019 | Floor 1 + 2
CIRCLE is delighted to launch a vibrant summer exhibition, featuring an exciting mix of rotating work by our core group of artists.
Shelley Anderson, Lauren Baker, Adam Bridgland, Augustine + Bridgland, Jenny Beavan, Susan Bleakley, Henry Beazley, Merlyn Chesterman, Emily Crookshank, Morgan Doyle, Pine Feroda, Simon Gaiger, Adam Halls, Peter Hayes, John O’Carroll, Danielle Creenaune, Chris Prindl, Nick Reader, Stephen Lambert, Daniel Miles, Joni Sternbach, Spencer Shakespeare, Wil Jansen, Marie-Jose Robben, Mimi Robson.
Showing as part of CIRCLE Summer Mixed
Painter Susan Bleakley has been listening all her life. As a child she learnt to listen to the voices from the ether – the upper air. She knew she was a sensitive; a girl who heard the stones and trees speak.
Later, Susan’s immersion in Shamanism and native respect for ‘mother earth’ became inseparable from her art – her large colourfield paintings exude quietude; she says they are about stripping back veils to reveal the internal voice. Shamanic healing optimises the flow of energy fields around the body and Susan’s perfectly balanced paintings resound with smooth flowing energies. (read more)
Showing alongside CIRCLE Summer Mixed 2019
CIRCLE are showing the bold and beautiful turquoise and patinated bronze wall reliefs of metalworker Shelley Anderson. From the deep turquoise seas of the pacific ocean to the highest turquoise domes on the mosques of Iran, from the turquoise mines of California, famous for Navaho Indian Jewellery, to our own turquoise coves in Cornwall – Turquoise blue is the colour of life and the afterlife.
a summer travel show
24 AUG – 24 SEP 2019 | Floor 1
Travel means to take a journey – somewhere away from home and often abroad. Journeys take so many forms – expeditions, trips, tours, excursions, voyages, treks, safaris, pilgrimages, cruises, and sometimes just roaming.
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CIRCLE’s summer travel show promises to be a visual delight. No cliche’d mediterranean watercolours painted from villa gardens – instead a contemporary exhibition of new works by our core group, plus some fine pieces from guest artists. In keeping with our location the main body of the show has a coastal vibe with plenty of blue and yellow – sun, sand, surf and glistening turquoise water evoking everyone’s experience of summer holidays.
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We have chosen an eclectic mix of work which reveals the strong individualism of each artist – Tracy Emin’s I LOVE YOU beach towel from her Margate installation and Adam Bridgland’s witty cruise badges keep a light touch. Foreign travel: Egypt, Morocco, Australia, China, Croatia and California are seen through artists’ eyes and co-curator + artist John O’Carroll promises desert road videos to accompany his wide angle landscapes.
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In keeping with West Coast tradition TRAVELLING LIGHT includes must-have coffee table books and exclusive postcard editions.
Printing in the studio 22 – 26 JUNE 2019
Artwork highlighted as part of CIRCLE Summer Mixed
Accomplished printmaker Emily Crookshank is excited. Her life is in transition. She is taking her fidelity to art and nature to another level, realising that individual and collective potential are interconnected.
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Engaging with her new ‘live work’ community in Thamesmead, an urban place with ancient woodland and an established travelling populace, Emily has found a space to set up her own, long waited for, print studio where she will run collaborative workshops focusing on art, environment and community.
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Emily is not the only one feeling good – CIRCLE are exited too. As well as the larger etchings we are showing a hot off the press series of place specific mono prints inspired by the Cornish landscape.
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The etching process is a disciplined art with many restrictions. Once mastered, the artist can conjure very subtle shades of expression. Working in a series is the printmakers norm – each print is born from the one preceding it and like a line of footprints in the sand, every print is slightly different.
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Crookshank spends chunks of her time in the wilder landscapes of Britain and like the notable printmaker Norman Ackroyd she shares a passion for Scotland, Mull and the Hebrides – describing the rhyme of the landscape, firstly, with drawing – the most spontaneous form of expression: the drawings are memento of her engagement with nature.
Unique monoprints by Morgan Doyle
15 JUNE- 16 JULY 2019 | Floor 1
American modernist Stuart Davies said in 1950 “I care nothing for abstract art as such, but only as it evidences a contemporary language of vision suited to modern life.” Collagist Robert Rauschenberg made his art with the junk he found on his afternoon strolls in downtown Manhattan. In England, painter Prunella Clough found beauty in debris and made debris beautiful. On his home road in Chelsea Morgan Doyle ingests the detritus of the day – stuff which remains will form the language of his prints – monoprinting being the perfect medium for receiving marks of memory.
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Enough context, Doyle’s voice is hoarse, he has an early summer cold. Morgan says ‘summer’ quite a few times as he looks out into his garden. “I have to look out of the window to know what I am doing” – needing reassurance from the beautiful living. And beauty, not to be confused with attractiveness, is Doyle’s obsession. To make life fine is a curse bestowed on the gods, it’s also the burden of therapists and the impulse for philosophers and artists. Morgan Doyle works all the time, with noble reason – hoping that each new day he will make something simple, serene and so very beautiful – and when he does he will no longer swim like a fish under water, without air.
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Until that moment comes Doyle will continue to engage us with his close to beautiful prints which, as the breath of a mans life, are rich with experience and human frailty. He says he is not interested in prominence or fame, just freedom – to work through his time. Truth nestles into the thin skin of a likeable man.
by Augustine + Bridgland
18 MAY – 12 JUNE 2019 | Floor 1
In honour of Flora, goddess of Spring, CIRCLE are showing the exuberant floral prints of Royal College of Art graduates Danny Augustine and Adam Bridgland.
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If in need of an antidote to the purveyors of gloom, then look no further. Augustine and Bridgland – these two men who paint as one, create abstract designs of inflated florescence. Think sunny gardens ripe with floribunda, think Monet and mothers curtains, think the emotionally charged blooms of Emil Nolde, but think also of the whip-smart commercial screen prints of Andy Warhol.
21 MAR – 12 JUNE 2019 | Floor 2
CIRCLE is delighted to launch a vibrant spring exhibition, featuring an exciting mix of rotating work by a core group of artists.
Shelley Anderson, Lauren Baker, Adam Bridgland, Susan Bleakley, Merlyn Chesterman, Emily Crookshank, Pine Feroda, Simon Gaiger, Adam Halls, Peter Hayes, John O’Carroll, Chris Prindl, Nick Reader, Stephen Lambert, Henny van der Meer, Daniel Miles, Joni Sternbach, Wil Jansen, Marie-Jose Robben, Mimi Robson
Spring to Sea ~ Paintings by Bob Aldous and poetry by Myra Schneider
13 APR – 14 MAY 2019 | Floor 2
Painting and poetry make good bedfellows. Here we see the poet Myra Schneider respond to the paintings of artist Bob Aldous.
Collaborations between poets and painters are not new. In fact there is a fashionable movement of responding to painting through poetry. The late art writer John Berger, in his seminal book ‘Ways of Seeing’ reminded us that images come first, then words- ‘but when a poet creates a poem in response to a work of art then the words become another way of seeing.’
02 – 31 MAR 2019 | Floor 1 + 2
Artists have languages. How we respond to a work of art depends on our own repertoire of non verbal languages and our particular ways of seeing. Looking at Danielle Creenaune’s imagery for the first time, we quickly recognise her language. Danielle has a heartfelt physical connection with the natural landscape, an active knowledge of art history and mastery over her chosen printing medium, lithography. She also shares the language of a select group of modern artists who abstract from the real to create hybrid landscapes which give a sensation of place without losing material reality.
30 NOV – 20 MAR 2019 | Floor 1 + 2
Adam Bridgland, Susan Bleakley, Merlyn Chesterman – RE, Emily Crookshank, Pine Feroda, Simon Gaiger – MRBS, Adam Halls, Daniel Miles, Adrian Mitchell, Henny van der Meer, Joe, John O’Carroll, Wil Jansen, Nicholas Lees, Mimi Robson.
30 NOV – 29 DEC 2018 | Floors 1 + 2
CIRCLE are showing an exiting group of ceramic artists from Britain and Europe as part of their winter fine crafts initiative. Making vessels from clay has been part of our human journey for thousands of years.
Nicholas Arroyave-Portela, Paul Jackson, Nicholas Lees, Deborah Mitchell, Peter Hayes, Jenny Beavan, Regina Heinz and Chris Prindl are exhibiting their works in CLAY this autumn. The show, curated by John O’Carroll and Lucy Thorman will allow viewers to explore the ceramicists very different styles and techniques. The relationship between the functional, the non-functional and the valuable is one aspect that emerges in the work of the artists featured in this exhibition.
CLAY will coincide with CIRCLE Winter Mixed, introducing new paintings by Stephen Lambert.
Film and choreography, both time based art forms are at the heart of Fiona Léus Lambert’s ballet prints. Rows of images, photographic studies of movement are reworked stills, shot using Super 8 film during rehearsals for ‘Eidos Telos’ by William Forsythe.
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Capturing the ballet’s atmosphere and the beauty of movement in still form resulted in Fiona Léus Lambert creating ‘This is not a Ballet’ a series of limited edition C-type prints.
A fine art photography exhibition featuring
Joni Sternbach and Caroline Marrack
22 SEP – 20 OCT 2018
CIRCLE are curating a show of contemporary analogue photography by two distinctive artists who have found inspiration on the north Cornish coast. Surfing and coastal walking are common activities which become the subjects for compelling images when viewed with a sensitive eye and a responsive lens. In a world of digital media, taking photographs with older, slower tools enables the artist to work within the limitations of the camera, making a space for poetry.
30 JUNE – 22 SEP
CIRCLE is delighted to launch a vibrant summer exhibition, featuring an exciting mix of work by Bob Aldous, Shelley Anderson, Merlyn Chesterman, Emily Crookshank , Simon Gaiger, Peter Hayes, Stephen Lambert, Trudy Montgomery, Daniel Miles, John O’Carroll, Michael Olsen, Marie-Jose Robben and Mimi Robson. The exhibition will show a rotation of work but all works will be available to view online and continuing until 22nd September.
Showing as part of SUMMER Group Exhibition
CIRCLE have invited Trudy Montgomery to talk about her latest series ‘The Mothers & The Daughters’ all of which are the offspring of original abstract paintings referencing and honouring the Divine Feminine in all women. These paintings were conceived while the artist was pregnant and are only now, after a four year gestation, ready for presentation in the world.
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The series will be on show until June 30th as part of our mixed Spring exhibition on the first floor.
04 – 25 AUG 2018
A group show of diverse, talented and well collected artists who can be found cutting, spraying, painting, throwing and spilling onto canvas in studios and spaces from London to LA. The exhibition will include a selection of original works and limited edition prints.
28 JUL – 01 AUG
26 MAY – 23 JUNE 2018 (Upper Gallery)
Chris Seaber conflates painting and drawing with the potential that a two-dimensional image has to be an object. The works hanging on the gallery wall might be labelled assemblages, a form of sculpture comprised of objects so put together that they make a cohesive visual whole; they could equally be drawings or, for those that include paint, paintings. Conceivably they project out just enough into the real world to stop being purely a painting or drawing and become an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to. Where they forego the support of a canvas stretcher they hang and flop like soft sculpture. When they have a tight formal structure they become constructions with a disciplined approach to composition in which chromatic relationships that shift across a strict system of variation are explored through rigorous repetition. Seaber’s works are essentially abstractions but even here they defy easy categorisation (…)
05 MAY – 30 JUNE 2018
CIRCLE is delighted to launch its Spring exhibition on the first floor of the gallery, featuring an exciting mix of work by Ben Allen, Simon Gaiger, Peter Hayes, Sax Impey, Wil Jansen, Daniel Miles, Trudy Montgomery, John O’Carroll, Ivo Ringe, Mimi Robson and Marie-Jose Robben. All works will be available to view online and opening from 5th May continuing until 30th June 2018.
26th MAR – 28th APR 2018
This exhibition is made up of a series of large scale woodcuts by Pine Feroda including individual prints by the four artists who make up the Pine Feroda print collective. Pine Feroda only work on large scale prints and they use the glorious coast of North Devon and it’s craggy rock formations, tumultuous seas and the play of light upon water as their inspirational subject matter.
30 NOV – 18 MAR 2018
A group exhibition featuring works by John O’Carroll, Ben Allen, Simon Gaiger, Peter Hayes, Michael Olsen, Ivo Ringe, Dan Miles, Jenny Beavan and Adam Halls. In addition we will be introducing works by three new artists to the gallery, painters Sax Impey, Kerry Harding and print artist Emily Crookshank.
14 OCT – 25 NOV 2017
In curating SOLID MODERN we have chosen artists whose cardinal form stems from the Modern movements of Cubism, Di Stijl and Surrealism. Simon Gaiger from Wales and Parisian Genevieve Claisse have suitably different takes on abstraction.
17 SEP – 7 OCT 2017
Adam Halls is tucked into the corner of a small hut, his studio. On his right hangs a work in progress, glistening in the cold day light. I look through the shed window at the full grass fields, beyond, to the valley and over the moor; this is Adams palette. I study the unfinished embroidery – the wavering layers of late summer yellows and muted greens: Adams colours in Adams place.
21 AUG – 14 SEP 2017
The young artists studio is a small patch in a room full of fork trucks. Henry Beazley’s rusted iron sculptures jostle for space in the dimly lit storeroom. When disentangled, I find Henry’s abstract offerings quirky and engaging, resembling the modernist sculpture of David Smith, who was the first artist to work directly with welded metal. On second thought they seem to be made in the spirit of Catalan sculptor Julio Gonzalez who was famous for his expressive use of iron in modern sculpture.
15 JUNE – 29 JULY 2017
Walking into the cool aesthetically tasteful gallery which seamlessly blends fine art and fine craft, I am dazzled by a show of lucent colour in a white room under a blue sky. Stylistically experimental and pulsating with life, Ben Allen’s new abstract paintings, at first sight, seem to be born from sixties America – Painters like Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland.
