Sally Spens and Philip Wakeham

About

Venice is the underlying theme of the exhibition, a city that has inspired countless artists and is astonishing in its beauty and resilience. Many hands and visions have been instrumental in its creation.

Wakeham and Spens both work from a foundation of drawing and regard the manual transformation of materials as an essential part of the creative process. Philip Wakeham works exclusively in bronze, which he learnt to cast at the Royal Academy. Sally Spens studied at Goldsmiths and now works predominantly with copper plate etching.

Wakeham’s sculpture is infused with the poetry of human imagination and expression. He sculpts from life in clay, capturing the subtle realities, before casting in bronze. Seemingly disparate natural and man made elements combine to produce resonant three - dimensional images linked by the human form.

Spens’ work looks at Venice as a city of artisans, from the viewpoint of her background in the applied arts. Thinking about the way that equivalent imagery is used in design for theatre and the relationship between nature and artistry, labour and extravagance. The etchings seek to link ideas with images that give a sense of hand and eye in the city’s history.

“ I believe it is the job of the artist to produce symbols of non-verbal understanding, the visual has a direct path to our minds and hearts.” Philip Wakeham