Exhibition

Roger Ackling: Sun Histories

28 Mar 2015 – 17 May 2015

Regular hours

Saturday
10:00 – 18:00
Sunday
10:00 – 18:00
Tuesday
10:00 – 18:00
Wednesday
10:00 – 18:00
Thursday
10:00 – 18:00
Friday
10:00 – 18:00

Cost of entry

Free admission

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Kestle Barton

Helston
England, United Kingdom

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At Kestle Barton we are delighted to be able to show an exhibition of work by the late Roger Ackling. Worked in direct collaboration with the natural environment, Ackling‘s subtle mark making on a wide variety of wooden forms, brings a thoughtful and sensitive approach to visual representation.

About

Kestle Barton: Rural Centre for Contemporary Arts launches its 2015 exhibition programme with a tribute to the recently deceased artist of historical note – Roger Ackling (1947 – 2014). This show is an opportunity, in Cornwall, to see the groundbreaking artwork of its time that has held its own powerful significance throughout the long career of the artist; who, literally, had a hand in the making of his life’s contemplative work.

 

Ackling used a hand-held magnifying glass to direct the sun’s rays onto wood – burning horizontal lines, in methodical patterns, directly onto the surface of discarded objects that he found to make his work on: Garden tools with wooden handles, whole or partial crates and other driftwood washed up on beaches. The later was especially available when he lived in an old Coastguard Station in Weybourne Hope, with his wife Sylvia, with the sea eroding the cliff out from under their house and studio.

 

Ackling developed this collaboration with the sun in the late 1960s and he continued to use this method of making for over 40 years. His attitude towards art making was informed by his time in St Martins School of Art (1966-88), where he and fellow students such as Richard Long and Hamish Fulton, shared a pioneering interest in redefining ‘sculpture’ – taking it outside…outside of the constraints of traditional studio-based, gallery orientated art and outside into the natural environment. These artists of developed practices that engaged directly with the land and other natural resources – bringing new possibilities to classic artistic concerns of form, composition, perspective, materials and mark making.

 

The aesthetic values and simplicity of Japanese culture generally, and the work of 17C Japanese sculptor, Enku, in particular also had a great influence on Ackling’s understanding of his artistic practice. It is in Japan, in 1986, that Ackling married Sylvia – who shared his appreciation of that ethos for living and making art.

 

Kestle Barton is very pleased to be able to show an exhibition of work by the late Roger Ackling. The artwork for this exhibition is graciously provided on loan from the vast collection held by Annely Juda Fine Art; with kind support from Sylvia Ackling. 

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