Stew Gallery Private View Review

Unattended the exhibition with my Girlfriend, Kirsty Bell who was one of the artist on show, her piece “Where’s the Great” featured 3 cup and saucers made from fabrics placed on plinths, 2 of which were knocked over; this was the title in action where the point is saying that British heritage is tea and by them being knocked over it represents the fact that we, as a nation have lost the right to use the word Great in Great Britain.

The cups themselves had been crafted beautifully, from the size of the cups to the sticking that visible, the final pieces were very nice to hold but I feel that they weren’t as bold as they could have been in order to take advantage of the space given and the room that they were placed in, bolder, larger cups could have set a striking center piece for all that walked into this area.

Red Tea Cup and Saucer

Blue Patterned Cup and Saucer

Cream Canvas Cup and Saucer

Although attending for these reasons I personally liked:

A big canvas painting that featured a woodland scene; the brush strokes were beautifully crafted and the composition complimented its arrangement – Charles Daborn, who not only provided this painting but was the live music for the evening, the selection of songs and melodies made the event come alive and helped to alleviate the awkward silences that surely would have occurred in such an environment.

A large portrait painting that was photo realistic, where at first glance you can be fooled into thinking that it was a photograph and even on a closer look you feel that your own eyes are tricking you, but it’s not, the painting has been crafted with excellence and precision – Amy Rogers

A large cloth with an architectural piece drawn on with what looks like marker pens and fine liners, the basic shapes that are highlighted by the flourishes of colour and line make this piece one of my favorite as it is about architecture and structure within urban environments – Graeme Crorkin

A collection of small hand sewn images about the blood donations process, I think that this version is very much noteworthy for their honest depiction, design styled look, carefully crafted stitching as well as the way in which all colours have been eliminated to highlight the blood-red in a single frame – Charlotte Carver

A large canvas that has been attacked with different colour paints, that have been highly watered down, the canvas was held up and the paint was dripped down and this created the lines that you see, a huge grid like formation with no coherence but bundles of character and is very pleasing on the eye – Andrew Pointer

A medium landscape painting that can only be described as swirls in flames, the paint had been applied thickly and then with a small blunt object areas had been moved around to create movement which just looked amazing up close as it did from afar – Ruth Stanley

And the most inspiring piece was a pair of larger drinking robots; the idea is amazing the execution was flawless, well almost and the placement caused the robots to have shadows that were just as good as the real metal object. The duo continuously raised the cans to there square mouths before putting it down again ready to repeat the process, which was and definitely will be mesmerizing to all onlookers – Guy Copland

The worst part of the exhibition was the time in which I turned up, this being thirty minutes into the private view meant that, on Pancake day I was late for the stack of pancakes that were on offer, the carrots didn’t really make up for this but it was a nice snack none the less. The event went really well and the turn out was a lot more than expected, which meant that in places at times there was more people to art work and thus very hard to manoeuvre the gallery space.

On a side note, the drinks set up before the doors open looked like art work on their own.