Steve Handley - Altared Landscapes

A documentary about Steve Handley's inspiration behind his sculpture exhibition at the Welbeck Gallery, 29 August - 18 October 2009.

Steve says, "This show marks a rebirth in my own creative journey as an Artist. Although I have been a furniture maker these past 14 years, originally I studied Fine Art and then taught Sculpture and Ceramics. The seeds of this change of direction were sown on seeing Grayson Perrys show `The Charms of Lincolnshire` in 2007. It inspired and touched me in so many ways, reconnecting me to an inner-self long confined by making pieces of furniture. This new body of work embodies some old obsessions, in a return to my long preoccupation with landscape. `Earth and Sky` describes it more fully as I do not make pictures and have no interest in being confined to a rectangle. The almost standing stone slabs of wood are about the connection of earth and sky, combined with the transitory bird, sun and moon elements. The `Altar` has long been in my head and goes back to my High Anglican childhood. I think altars fulfill some ancient need, a focus for the magical mystic beyond. I have always been fascinated by the power of symbol, image and ritual combined with the almost `fetish` power objects can have. Artists are magicians of the visual and I have felt at times like some High Priest conducting a `Sculptural Mass'! Folk Art, particularly from Eastern European, has fed me so many ideas. In 1988 I spent a month travelling in Bohemia and Moravia, my first ventures abroad at 40! I made a strong connection with folk art and from my insular English world I discovered another which immediately connected with my creative heart: the Slovakian goat-head Turon, symbol of the end of winter and the beginning of Spring, Gingerbread Devils sold at fairs. In the work for this exhibition I have extended the idea through Polish folk images of the Jew, Gypsy and Devil to other outsiders, scapegoats and bogeymen, figures that are present in any society".

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Steve
• Handley
• Cupboards
• Sculpture
• Welbeck
• Exhibition
• Wood
• Nottingham