Beneath the Surface

So what have i been doing this last year? I have been quietly productive. I’ve had a couple of exhibitions in Shropshire, one at the The Edge Arts Centre in Much Wenlock, the beautiful little town that was home of the re-birth of the Olympic Games. Another exhibition in Shrewsbury at the Gateway Arts centre. Both exhibitions were focussed on work which uses soil as paint. My work has moved forward, I don’t so much mix up soil, tread it in and drip it onto the canvas as before, i have developed more techniques, still, i would say within the range of ‘Contemporary Action Painting’.

I now scour, squeeze, abrade, freeze, thaw, flood, bend, beat the crap out of, and jump about on my work, imitating nature in all her glorious actions.

The inspiration, and continued fascination with geological action and has definitely come from travelling through dramatic South Western USA, Pays Dogon, in Mali and from living in Shropshire, which is one of the worlds richest geological areas.

This is soil pigment art work shown at the Edge Centre Exhibition, titled Liminal. 1m x1m 

 

Liminal is for sale, priced £700. Paints were made from soil pigments: Ground Wenlock Lime & Hawkstone rock, slaked Easthope soils and clays, Berrington soil, Caughley red & Myddle clay slip and milk-lime,paint painted on pierced canvas.

Here, in Shropshire, we don’t do geological spectacle, we do age. Shropshire has ten of the 12 geological periods (ages) here, which is why most students studying geology at University in the UK, will at some time visit us on a field trip.  

Here’s what was written….

The current exhibition, Beneath the Surface, is of work by local eco-artist Wren Miller. Wren uses natural and recycled materials to create her pieces. The main feature of the exhibition is her series of large pieces created with materials made from local soils. Interpretive panels give a fascinating portrait of the colours and textures of the county’s varied geology. 

 Arts Centre Director, Alison Vermee, said: “The Edge is fortunate to have the opportunity to exhibit such vibrant and stimulating work. Because the space is used by the community of William Brookes School and Arts Centre audiences, a wide range of people get to enjoy the pieces every day.”

I was very pleased with the results of the intense time in the studio in preparation for the exhibition and I have had feedback from people who saw it months afterwards, connecting me with a different approach to art and making the connection with me being an ‘eco’ artist. 

Below is another geology related piece I made, in collaboration with Ruth Gibson and Huw Powell Roberts from the Cloud Gallery Collective a few years back, when The Harrison’s ‘Greenhouse Britain’ came to Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery. We were commissioned by the gallery, to contribute to ‘Greenhouse Shropshire’ exhibition shown alongside the Harrisons. This was inspired by Charles Darwin’s early introduction to Erratics, via the celebrated Bellstone, which originated in Cumbria and travelled to Shrewsbury on a sheet of ice in the ice age. Charles’ Geology Master at The Shrewsbury School, showed this to him and apparently ignited a bit of an interest. The Cloud Gallery collected Erratics (chunks of geological material moved from one place to another far away), transferred photographs of interesting views of the sky, often reflected from places that would have existed in the time of Shrewsbury’s boy, Charles Darwin. The series of erratics were set out through the town and a trail published which encouraged people to take a walk through and an artists view of Shrewsbury.  The transferred images after being exposed to some very severe winters have all worn away now, which is, after all as it should be.