RESIDENCY: Work Hall
Residency: Work Hall, High Wycombe
7 - 17 May 2024
Work Hall studio space is on the 2nd floor and is occupied by permanent artists in residence and welcoming hosts, Gill Gregory, Lyndall Pearce and Marion Piper. There are many other industries inside the warehouse giving the building a diverse and productive presence, and placing the artists domain within a multiple of varied enterprises.
Arriving on the first day of the Work Hall Residency there was no particular intention other than to be located in the space and experience uninterrupted time to make and create. The objective was to explore ideas as they came, or indeed as they didn’t and to work in a studio space alongside other artists as opposed to the usual solitary nature of my practice. Briefly disorientated and unsure of how the work would respond, reassurance was given that there might typically be many days where it may seem no progress is being made. The work, though, quickly began to develop after a visit to the hardware store, situated immediately across the road from the studio building.
Material for Making
Methods of Making
Ready made objects from the hardware store provided the starting point to proceed. Colour, material and form were directed by the purchases and were explored in playful methods of experimentation. The Work Hall Residency provided an ideal space to develop an open response to material and process. Encouraging development in an organic and largely unconscious manner, an outpouring of ideas and work accumulated. Paper and small canvases were used as the grounds from which to explore but the actual wall in Work Hall soon became an additional surface for testing and examining the work as it evolved.
As the practice moves back to the studio, once again a solitary and rural space, it will be interesting to observe whether outcomes from the Residency influence new work. Being a response to place, the work may not transfer but it is my understanding that we learn and we evolve and that each new experience, good or bad are parts that make up a whole story.
I am very grateful for my time at Work Hall and to work alongside artists, Gill, Lyndall and Marion. Thank you...