PRESS RELEASE
14 | 09 | 22
Transitory
An Exhibition of work by Caroline Cleave, Maxwell Steele and Claire Taylor
PZ Gallery | 30thSeptember to 6thOctober
Maxwell Steel |Echo,oil on canvas
Artists Caroline Cleave, Maxwell Steele and Claire Taylor met whilst studying on Newlyn School of Art's one year Mentoring Course in 2020. Their joint exhibition, titled ‘Transitory',refers to "the fleeting nature of shadows and the ever-changing nature of light, movement and time" and examines, through painting, sculpture and photography, each artist's own interpretations of time present and time past.All three artists share a love of Cornwall's timeless, sacred landscape, which holds scars of an industrial past, when copper and tin were mined and transported around the world.Caroline is a painter and printmaker, Maxwell Steele is a painter and sculptor, and Claire Taylor is a photographer and printmaker, but their very different approaches to working fit together in this show through an exploration and appreciation of black as a singularly powerful colour.
Maxwell Steelegraduated with a BA Hons in Fine Art from Birmingham UCE and a Masters Degree in Fine Art from Falmouth University. His calligraphic paintings balance their modernist simplicity with an investigation into the interplay of light and time.
Maxwell says:"In the words of T.S Eliot, from his poem Four Quartets - Burnt Norton, ‘what might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present'. This poem has both inspired our exhibition title and influenced the feeling of the show. All three of us have explored ideas of time and memory through the dissemination of gesture, through materiality and environments, and by referencing both internal and external landscapes. My abstracted paintings and sculptures are rooted in a world of objects and the shadows they cast. They are a record of movement and change; nothing is settled, both shadow and darkness possess a positive charm whilst sharing a blackness with its own luminosity".
Claire Taylorgraduated with a BA Hons in Visual Art from the University of Wales and currently works with cyanotypes, printmaking and video. Her work is concerned with the tracing of light, the passing of time and the recording of shadows. Poetry, phrases and experiences inspire her practice.
Claire says:"Like me, John is inspired by light and shadow, and Caroline's work has a strong sense of place, and we realised that our shared focus on time, change and history were threads that would pull a joint exhibition together. My work responds to the title Transitory by exploring the essence of something caught in its shadow, or a reflection on water, through the alchemy of process, particularly photograms and photographs. My work begins with using light to make images, capturing something temporary, and then moves forward to exploring the notion of time and its representation. Showing beside Caroline and Maxwell has made me consider where I sit between figuration and abstraction - using actual objects but transforming them from their recognisable form through abstraction".
Claire Taylor | By Any Other Name II, giclée print of a photogram
Caroline Cleavegraduated with a BEd Hons in Art from Bristol University. Her prints and paintings reflect issues of economy and sustainability associated with those living and working in Cornwall's rural environment, in particular the coast around her home inPort Isaac in North Cornwall, where her family has lived for over 400 years.
Caroline says:"My work relates to the Cornish landscape, whose seas and land have been fished and mined for centuries. These activities can be traced back to early Celtic trade routes and are documented and depicted in artefacts and engravings and are scratched into the landscape. It is these ancient, ghostly symbols of a working past, a faith in nature and the cyclical seasons that fascinate me. Like the miners and fishermen of the past, I love the idea that you can still feel and become part of this wonderful place: you merge into it, and it rewards, gives something back to your soul. For this exhibitionI have created a series of large-scale monochrome prints, and a central installation which fuses ancient Cornish landscapes and images echoing the past.I have enjoyed taking my work back to simple lines and abstracted images which speak of this beautiful, ancient landscape".
Caroline Cleave |One,handmade print
SeeTransitoryfrom 30thSeptember to 6thOctober at PZ Gallery,7 Coinagehall Street, Penzance TR18 4AY, and seeInstagram: @maxwellsteele61 / @Claire.j.t / @carolinecleave
Print Ready 300dpi images for press use:
MAXWELL STEELE Echo
CLAIRE TAYLOR By Any Other Name II
CAROLINE CLEAVE One
For further press information or additional images contact Mercedes Smith at Fine Art Communications director@fineartcommunications.co.uk / Tel 07825 270235 / www.fineartcommunications.co.uk
