Debby Akam – Paintings & Gary Power – Sculpture

DEBBY AKAM – “THINKING IN COLOUR” . Paintings + Woodcut Prints.
New paintings on canvas and original woodcut prints are investigations of layered space created through colour relationships and gestural brush marks. Working with colour energises and motivates me, and I am concerned with its’ potential as a source of positive emotional response linking personal experience with wider themes of celebration, mutability and renewal.

For me, the loosening of intentional control over parts of the making process can be surprising and inspiring, and I use semi – random processes such as wax- resist, printing and frottage(rubbing) as a tactic to evade consciously reasoned preconceptions I might have. Fragments of experience from everyday activities, walking and taking photographs and sketching in my semi- rural home environment inform the work. Patterns and motifs from woven and printed textiles are also a source of inspiration and summon up memories of my childhood in Borneo. I’m trying to find an equivalent for these diverse experiences from past, present and imagined futures. The process of painting is the catalyst that brings them all together and enables them to come to life in a new form.
Debby Akam  Recent exhibitions include Printfest 2019 where she was the winner of the Cranfield Prize; Painting the Language of Colour: solo exhibition at The Old Courthouse, Shap 2021; Through the Locking Glass, Rheged 2021 and Love Nature More Northern Print, Newcastle 2021. 

GARY POWER – “TINTOTEM PARADE”.
Tintotem Parade is a group of sculptures that often reference architectural motifs and images typically found and commemorated in the traditional Public Monument. However, rather than celebrate notable people or military victories they instead revise and examine this convention in a playful critique of the hubris often associated with their grandeur. This alternative collection of Counter-Monuments while still utilising plinths, the pedestal, different kinds of columns and towers are not for example made of stone or bronze, but stacks of discarded tins, transformed by colour to celebrate the value of upcycling. Atop each of the sculptures are displays of transformed, but familiar objects, such as teapots, toy soldiers, figurines, bowls, or distorted watering cans. Instead of a monument to a singular hero, these symbols suggest what other totemic objects, events and new ideas we may now share, revere, fear, or contemplate.
Gary Power is a visual artist, working across a variety of media, particularly in sculpture, where he has carried out a number of large scale commissions. His work was selected for the Trinity Buoys Drawing Prize (2018) and most recently for the RA Summer Exhibition (2021) where one of his Tintotems was displayed.

Special Evening Event 26th February 2022 from 6 – 9pm
Meet the artists while you enjoy a glass of wine and nibbles. This will include a rare opportunity to see ‘Christl’, a live poetry performance with Phoebe Power and Gary Power at 7pm. This is a 20-minute performance piece that brings together poetry and sculpture to tell the story of an Austrian post-war migrant to the UK, Christl. Through a ritualistic process of commemoration, our work explores how we might amplify marginalised voices from the past through an engagement with family history across three generations.
Phoebe Power is the author of Shrines of Upper Austria (Carcanet, 2018), which was awarded the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her new work Book of Days, a long poem in response to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, will be released in April.

Please click on the link to book in advance for this free event.   https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/upfrontartslimited/t-dykgoa