For those of you who might be thinking of coming to the exhibition at Espacio Gallery, "Heaven and Hell", the curatorial team have posted an introdution to the exhibition on their website.

http://www.espaciogallery.com/heaven-and-hell.html

 Cocoon , A collaborative piece  by Elspeth Penfold and Ignacio Canete Sanchez

Heaven and Hell
9 January - 2 February 2014 

Preview: Thursday 9 January 6-9pm
The question we started with in creating this show was: how would contemporary artists respond to this subject?  In our secular culture, where there is no otherworldly accountability for our behaviour, where we expect our needs and even our wants to be met here and now, where the consumerist imperative leaves little room for postponement of desires, would the theme find any resonance at all?

Lucretia Allan, Trinidad Ball, Eleanor Buffam, Consuelo Celluzzi,
Jamie Chapman, Sher Christopher, Robert Fitzmaurice, Beth Gadd,
Kate Hazell, Nicca Iovinella, Graham Johnston, Mary Knight,
Edu Luna, Carlos Mol, Elspeth Penfold, Jane Phillips, Pawel Prus,
Julia Tester, Tina Viljoen, Christopher Ward, Suok won Yoon, Annie Zamero

Guest Performance Artists
Dominique Vannod, Jones Tensini

Curatorial team:
Ahmed Farooqui, Carlos de Lins, Renee Rilexie

 I hope this whets your appetite and look forward to seeing you at the gallery in January.

Exhibition

It was great to hear from Carlos Lins a couple of weeks ago that my piece titled "Cocoon"has been selected to be included  included in the "Heaven and Hell" exhibition at Espacio gallery in Bethnall Green in January.

This is a mixed media piece involving knitted cocoons and paintings which I made in 2010 as a collaborative venture with a spanish artist called Ignacio Cañete Sanchez. I am looking forward to seeing it installed in a new space and will be contacting those on my mailing list with details nearer the time of the exhibition.

A part of "Cocoon"

For more information about Espacio follow this link http://www.espaciogallery.com/ . 

News from the Studio

 I have been busy for the last few months making new work and reflecting on the connections that pull my work together. There is a sort of schitzophrenia to my practice that I wanted to reflect upon and try to articulate.

As those of you who follow my work know I make installations, weave, knit, collage, print, paint and work collaboratively with other artists. I am driven to a scatter gun approach in my studio which is intuitive, choosing what to do and make and one thing leads to another. Consequently I often have several things on the go and then suddenly it all comes together.

I have been continuting with the work I started for the exhibition at Barclays Bank in July, titled "From the Cradle."Which took as its starting point the work of William Morris " How We Live and How we Might Live" , a meeting I had with our bank manager Jenny Duggan and a conversation with my three year old grandaughter, Lily-Jean. You can check out images of the exhibition in previous entries to this blog.

The plan has been to continue to explore textiles, particularly weaving and knitting and from these to develop drawing, printing and painting to try to consolidate the relationship between the two within my work. I have made a few experimental pieces photographed below.

Collographs using relief print method                                

Weaving - Colour and line

using Intaglio 

 There is a strong relationship between this body of work and "Impossible Weavings", my installation in 2009 which you can check out on this link to my website http://elspethpenfold.com/impossibleWeavings.htm

I hope to exhibit these as part of a larger exhibition including prints and drawings in 2014.

Publication

I am delighted to have one of my paintings included in the publication "Arte Energia Creativa" published by Trevisan International Art this October and will be available for purchase through amazon. The painting, "Drift", is one of the paintings shown at my solo exhibition "Discovery"at the Horsebridge Centre in June this year.

Whitstable Biennale 2014

Watch this space!

I am currently engaged in volunteering for the NCI Coastguards in Tankerton. I am also going to use the experience to develop work for the Biennale next summer and beyond! Who knows...drawing, painting...such a great studio space.This is where I will be based

Can't wait to find to be part of the team and to find out where this takes me!!

 If you would like to be included on my mailing list please let me know, elspethpenfold@yahoo.co.uk.