Times Traces & Transformation

Time Traces and Transformation

18th May – 25th June 2023

The Gallery
Parndon Mill,
Harlow,
Essex
CM20 2HP

An exhibition of current work by Caryl Beach, Mary Down, Jonathan Emmerson, Marian Hall, Declan Hoare, and Sally Tyrie.

This exhibition brings together six multi-disciplinary artists who met at Digswell Arts Studios in Hertfordshire. Each artist embraces and responds to the theme of ‘Time, Traces and Transformation’. With an emphasis on printmaking, this exhibition of innovative works reveals how the artists explore visual dialogues and layered meaning as a way to map time.

Caryl Beach is Inspired by landscape and nature and fascinated by the concept of time and memory. Her work acknowledges an appreciation and acceptance of the transient nature of our world and its simple integrity, with a beauty that lies in imperfection and impermanence. Working across multiple platforms including photography, drawing, printmaking and film she uses the process of layered imagery to illustrate time and memory, traces of events and places, how time can transform memory of past experiences.

Mary Down works mainly with printmaking and Book Art to create conceptual work that explore meaning through material. Her work for this exhibition investigates and exploits the mysterious alchemy of acid, steel, water, and rust, creating poetic prints.

Jonathan Emmerson is an illustrator and printmaker and uses relief printmaking techniques to produce exquisite thought-provoking imagery inspired by the natural world. His work for this exhibition explores the themes of life-cycles and evolution, creating worlds through repeated patterns. 

Marian Hall is a textile artist and printmaker who is usually inspired by nature, often landscapes. Her work in the exhibition takes a closer look at how the seedpod from the horse chestnut, one of our most iconic trees, slowly cracks open to release the conker. She invites the viewer to pause and consider the metamorphosis happening in the parks and gardens around us.

Declan Hoare works with a range of printmaking techniques always looking for new ways to express his ideas. He is inspired by history, genealogy and archaeology and uses printmaking to explore symbolic representations of mans impact through time. His work reveals ways to create narratives around human traces and presence; quiet images that explore our movement through life and space. He is currently exploring complex one-off monoprints from layered acrylic paints offset from gel printing plates and the impact of titles on an audience’s reception of artworks.

Sally Tyrie works mainly with printmaking, photography, and mixed media. Her work for this exhibition draws from research into the notion of dwelling places and rituals. The mixed media prints she has created reimagine a group of lumen prints that she made to document momentoes, fragments and chance finds, mainly collected from the daily walk. Her resulting works reveal her interest in ways to combine photography and printmaking to investigate narratives about transformation. Multi-layered imagery that offer alternative dialogues and explore the tensions between materiality and immateriality.