Retrospective – an Archive of work from 2007/8

Past Forward 2008
This exhibition was the result of seven artists and a composer working with the art of the past.
Each one chose a particular artist and made studies from their work, in the form of drawings, sketches and paintings. The knowledge gained from this analysis was used to make more personal pieces. The artist I studied was Grant Wood.
Grant Wood (1891-1942)
Best known for his famous canvas American Gothic (1930) American artist Grant Wood was born and raised in Iowa in America’s rural heartland .
Grant Wood founded his art on his heritage and pioneered a new vision of Regionalist Art.After a trip to Europe in 1928 he started to experiment with some artistic elements adapted from the old Flemish masters using their decorative patterning and solid contoured painting in his subsequent work.
I first became interested in Grant Wood’s paintings a few years ago when I used a transcription of American Gothic for a series of 5 self portraits so I decided to take a closer look at his lesser known work.
Woman with Plants is an unsentimental portrait of the artist’s mother depicting her as an archetypal pioneer woman with a rather lush farmscape in the background . This was Wood’s first serious attempt at a neo-Flemish painting In my version Woman with Fish instead of Grant Wood’s mother I have depicted my maternal grandmother Annie Jane Smith and have replaced the Iowa landscape with a Lincolnshire landscape (Tetney Lock to be more specific) The plants have become fish and Wood’s signature windmill is now the Grimsby Dock Tower.

woman with fish 2007

Daughters of Revolution Depicting them as shortsighted spinsters whom he called ‘ those Tory Gals ‘this satyrical painting was executed as a revenge on the local members of the DAR after they publicly criticised a piece of his work for being assembled abroad. In my version Daughters of Grim (above right) I have replaced the stern faced DAR women with my maternal grandmother Annie Jane Smith and my paternal grandmother Alice Ann Stone on the left of the picture and my mother Muriel May Stone on the right. The painting in the background depicts the brave fishermen of the Grand Fleet Grimsby c 1920. and I have replaced the teacup with a small fish .

Daughters of Grim 2008

Art of the Stitch 2008/9
March 2008 – November 2009 – I had 2 pieces selected from 944 entries of which 56 were chosen to be shown . Biennial Exhibition presented by the Embroiderer’s Guild in association with Coat’s Crafts.
International Tour :Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery,UK, Deutsches Textilmuseum, Krefeld, Germany, Museum of Applied Arts, Budapest, Hungary, Knitting & Stitching shows, London & Harrogate 2009
East End Chair 2007 (left) Woman with a Fish 2007 (right)