The Pilgrimage Books

The Artists' Books Exhibition

The Chapter House, Worcester Cathedral
Tuesday 3rd - Saturday 7th October 2006
 
and Worcester City Art Gallery
21st October to 25th November 2006

The exhibition in the Cathedral's Chapter House

Why did the Worcester Pilgrim make his journey? What do any of us find out when we make a journey to a new place or an old place? Visual artists explore themes of pilgrimage and create new artistic journeys in traditional and contemporary book form.

Sol Vitur Ambulando (walking solves everything) by Carmel Olivier

I was born in 1957. After reading for BA Hons. in Psychology at Reading University (1979) I worked for many years in the field of residential child psychotherapy, and I raised a family. I took a BA in Fine Art at Cheltenham in 2001, and was awarded the Nelsons Fine Art Prize in 2002. That was also the year of my MA in Fine Art, again at Cheltenham. I was selected from national candidates for the Ida Branson Memorial Bequest, MA Graduate Show at Millfield School, in 2003, and was Graduate Associate in Digital Media for the University of Gloucestershire in 2004. For several years I have taught life drawing, experimental film and video, digital practice and book art at Stroud College and the University of Gloucestershire.

I frequently use the conventions and freedoms of the artist's book and this has led me to create books alone as well as in close collaboration with poets and other artists. One of my books is in the Tate's Artist's Book Collection. I am interested in exploring the relationship between text and image through a variety of scale, from the hand-held to large installation.

Sarahb was born in London, 1965. She studied at art-college for six years, completing a Fine Art degree in Sculpture at Cheltenham in 2001/2002. In 2001 the photogram 'i am the sun of myself' was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. Since leaving college Sarah has been a self-directed artist building a multi-disciplinary practice and in 2002 began a series of video and audio projects appropriating archive war footage, receiving a number of bursaries for their completion including a PVA MediaLab residency in 2004. The video-works continue to be exhibited widely, including in 2003 a screening in Berlin. In 2005 Sarah was commissioned to make a video to mark the demolition of India & Pakistan House in Cheltenham and curated the project for the exhibition 'Some Other Place…' at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. She also co-ordinated and contributed to the artists' book show 'Primary Source' at Warwick University in October 2005. Recent work has included a reversed spoken audio for the Mercia Enactment Society's Kenelm project for the Site 06 arts festival, and Sarah continues to pursue her ambition to open a freeform artist's work/project space in Cheltenham.

James Fisher graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1997, after working as artist in residence at the University of Calgary in Canada. In 2001 he was awarded the Abbey Scholarship in Painting and spent the year at the British School in Rome.

Fisher is represented by the Emma Hill Fine Art at the Eagle Gallery in London. Recent exhibitions include '& other recollections' which ran with an associated show 'The Wanderer' at the Rochester Art Gallery; and 'Cartoon, Collage And The Decorative Motif', an exhibition which brought together contemporary artists whose work explores intensely worked decorative imagery and layered pictorial references.

Other projects include a collaboration with the Artist /Architecture group muf for the biennial exhibition of contemporary art at Eingen des Bains in Paris.

In 2006 Fisher published a print folio 'Encountering Saint Ippolyts', a work based on accounts of John Clare's escape from an asylum in Epping.

Fisher is a painter whose work explores contemporary concerns to do with the relationship of image and ground, within a two dimensional illusory surface. Through references such as folklore, travelogue, natural history, archaeology and geometry, the paintings excavate their own space to reveal traces of reverberating memory and presentiment.

Fisher's paintings incorporate highly-worked decorative passages through surfaces that are obscured or eroded. By using a cartoon to position the figurative element within these surfaces Fisher is able to confront the key question that motivates his work: the reconciliation of particular kinds of narrative with a painted arena. The cartoon, whilst embedding the drawing in the painting's ground, also reinforces allusions to early Italian Renaissance images.

'Such images consistently remind me how I want my paintings to operate: to make one conscious of oneself in relation to them, much as we use the past to ground ourselves in the present.'

Most recently, Fisher's pictures have become populated by ghosts of those engaged in a ritualistic or pastoral relationship with their environment. These figures make reference to a strong interest in folk plays and traditional dance. They also offer an opportunity to investigate the union of a still image and an animated narrative.

Recent reviews place Fisher amongst a group of contemporary painters whose works 'assert the vitality of exploration into the power of the strictly visual...' (Corinna Lotz, Galleries Jan 2005) and reflect 'a philosophical and emotional engagement ... filtered through an original visual intelligence.' (Sue Hubbard, Independent, 17.01.05).

artworcs gratefully acknowledge support for The Worcester Pilgrim project from...