Rolling
Structures

17 – 29 April 2012

The show comprises the work of four artists: three painters, one potter. They share a deep-seated interest in the history of their craft and a desire to extend its ancient approaches into the contemporary age.

Adopting the great Quatrocentto master Fra Angelico as a patron saint: they claim he exemplifies the principle of radicalism within the context of a tradition; serving as a reminder that the process of artistic upheaval has always had as much to do with continuity as with change.

Artistic concerns often considered the exclusive preserve of Modernism they see as dating back much further.

Simon Jowitt, the local painter of the group who has lived and worked in Cottenham for the past twenty years, says: "The human animal has always instinctually conceived of space as something with the potential to be moved through. Whether by the expansion of spatial illusion off a flat surface or the investing of forms with heightened sensations of volume, the fourth dimension has always been of paramount importance within material culture. The animation of 'static' matter through the alchemy of drawing is one of the most enduring concerns of creativity and the abiding mystery and strangeness of art"

All four artists share a preoccupation with the relationship between form and movement, which lies at the heart of drawing; the show takes its name from this.


Doug Fitch is one of the country’s leading slipware potters. He studied at Derby School of Art. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and in Japan. He takes his inspiration from the countryside around his workshop and digs his own clay from local fields.

In a recent essay David Whiting of Earthmarque said of Doug: "He makes work that preserves that indescribable tremor of wheel and hand and the soft subtleties of his materials, much in the spirit, despite his individuality, of his craftsman forebears".

Doug argues: "It is a popular misconception, that to follow a traditional route is a safe and easy option. The skills presented by the master craftspeople of the past, set an extraordinarily high standard to which the contemporary maker must aspire. To seek to find one's own distinctive voice amongst many who are using the same language, is a challenge that I take upon myself each and every day".

Jonathan Lloyd studied Painting at Maidstone under John Titchell and Mike Upton. He is exhibiting pictures that reinterpret Uccello's "Rout of San Romano". They focus on Uccello's use of colour and decorative motifs to animate his space rather than on the linear perspective for which the Early Renaissance master is most famed. Jonathan explains: "I've stretched the format to allow a more cinematic approach and cranked up the violence. I try to synthesise ornate rhythms into a unity, which is both luminous and volatile".

Matthew Howard lives and works in West Sussex. He studied Painting at Byam Shaw School of Art and has won various awards for his work: Stainers Bursary in Fine Art, Pamela Ovens Senior Drawing Prize, James Byam Shaw Senior Painting Prize, John Murray R.A. Landscape Award.

He rejects strictly optical interpretation of his subject; insisting "I proceed from my sensations, by which I mean tactile seeing, which is sight and touch experienced as a unity".

Simon Jowitt read History at Robinson College Cambridge and combines his activities as a painter with teaching the History of Art. His approach to the representation of space inclines towards mathematical modeling, he is exhibiting a series of pictures built from vector geometry that form part of an ongoing search for a means of giving fluid definition to the shifting viewpoints of Cubism.