Press Release 24 | 07 | 24
Bruce Munro :Light Creations
26th October to 28th December 2024
Bruce Munro |Fireflies,2008
Velarde Gallery is delighted to show a selection of works by Bruce Munro, exploring the artist's life-long interrogation of light and how it affects emotions and memory. The pieces selected include two-dimensional works influenced by the artist's long and deep connection to this area of Devon.
Bruce Munro is an artist of international renown with a practice centred on immersive, mass light-based installations, often in locations of outstanding beauty. His works have been exhibited across the world and are currently on long-term display in California, Japan and Australia, including his best-known work, Field of Light, at Uluru in Australia's red centre.
As a fundraiser for the RNLI, and its 200th anniversary, Munro has donated an iteration of this nocturnal spectacle, a 35,000 square meter massing of 20,000 subtly pulsing light stems along the cliffs opposite Salcombe Harbour. This mesmerising work can be viewed between 5th October 2024 and 10th January 2025.
The works at Velarde Gallery explore his 2-D experiments in abstraction through lens-based wall hangings and smaller 3-D light installations. They centre on fleeting moments of connectivity and the great patterns of nature, phenomena we can sense but which remain elusive.
Bruce Munro |Giant Snowball,2008
Munro's association with this part of Devon goes back to childhood when he would visit his father during school holidays, roaming the cliffs and sketching in the coves. After graduating from art school in Bristol in 1982, he moved to Australia and forged a highly successful career in lighting design; it was only after his father died, in 1999, that he decided to return to a full time career in art. Munro's practice originates in the ideas he records in sketchbooks and photography, a practice he began in boyhood.
The wall mounted pieces include Munro's Time and Place series, which seeks to distil the emotional essence associated with specific images by taking a suite of photographs in a 360-degree arc and transforming them into a series of dots of pure colour. The resulting circles of graded hues are both a reminder of the original images and a route towards meditating on the emotions associated with them.
"Land, Sea and Sky", three of the most recent works in the Time and Place series, are further explorations of this theme, taking small sections of many landforms, seas and skies from different times and locations to explore a universality of elements.
The C-Scales series involves an exploration of binary codes and musical notation and Silent Boogie Woogie is another contemplation of abstraction and distillation, originating in a childhood fascination with photographic transparencies and the Lilliputian frozen world contained within the small vividly coloured squares.
The largest of the light installations in this exhibition, Fireflies is a meandering stream of light, a series of 91fibre-optic shower sculptures, inspired by two works of fiction; Kim by Rudyard Kipling and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, both of which feature rivers as metaphors for the spiritual and physical journey of all living creatures.
Three other works on display, Bell Chandelier, Snowball Chandelier and Light Shower are commissions which combine Munro's experiments with lights forms and materials in a dramatic interior setting.
In selecting the works for this exhibition, Munro says he wanted to suggest the sources of inspiration, in nature, philosophy and science that drives his practice, whether on an intimate or massive scale. It is also a thank you to this corner of Devon and a meditation on the importance of place, he says; "After 60 years, I feel like I'm coming home."
Events
Friday 25th October: Preview evening and supper with the artist.This is a ticketed event. Please contact the gallery atgallery@velarde.co.ukto book.
Saturday 26th October:Private view 6pm - 8pm. All welcome.
Sunday 27th October: Public opening, meet the artist.
See velarde.co.uk for further details.
SeeBruce Munro,Light Creations, from 26th October to 28th December 2024 at Velarde,86 Fore St, Kingsbridge, Devon. TQ7 1PP and atvelarde.co.uk.
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Print Ready 300dpi images for press use:
BRUCE MUNRO Fireflies
BRUCE MUNRO Giant Snowball
Editors Notes
Velarde
Opened in July 2023, Velarde is a contemporary Fine Art and Craft gallery in the heart of Kingsbridge, South Devon. The building includes a 1,400 square foot exhibition space, a sculpture garden, and two boutique apartments.Velarde aims to bring the very best in British and International contemporary art to Devon, giving collectors the opportunity to connect with emerging new talent, as well as established artists and makers. With a focus on quality, diversity of practice and creative innovation, Velarde's year-round programme of exhibitions brings exceptional painting, sculpture, photography and contemporary craft to the heart of the Southwest.
For further information contact Velarde, 86 Fore Street, Kingsbridge, Devon, TQ7 1PP andgallery@velarde.co.ukwww.velarde.co.uk
For further press information, interviews or additional images contact Mercedes Smith at Fine Art Communications director@fineartcommunications.co.uk | Tel 07825 270235 | www.fineartcommunications.co.uk
