Sunday, 28 June 2015

Artist in Residence - TonbridgeArts Brochure Copy


Rosemarie Powell is a sculptor. She has her studio on Ashdown Forest. Initially working in stone (marble and alabaster) and bronze, she found herself re-embracing clay, the medium that had led her into sculpture at the outset. Working with clay, no longer simply as a starting point for a maquette or subsequent casting in bronze, but for the material itself, the fascination and pleasure in exploring and understanding its properties and behaviours, the endeavour to bring the spirit of the material to life and investigating the possibilities this opens up. Some years and several exploratory paths further on, she currently works mainly in black and white clay which she fires to varying temperatures to achieve authentic expression of material.
Her language is the abstract form. She seeks purity through paring down to the essence. Together with integrity of material consciousness of form and integrity of process constitute the mainstays of her practice. 

Rosemarie will be Artist in Residence in the Tunnel Gallery during the Michaelmas term. She sees this residency as an opportunity to explore further the connections Art brings between people - something she considers one of the great joys of Art - and seeks to do so in two ways: in addition to sharing her thought and work processes with the students, Rosemarie seeks to explore further the possibilities of actively involving the Tonbridge School community in creating a sculpture installation, a project she terms ‘social sculpture’, extending beyond the visible material to include the invisible (social) materials and addressing such questions as what is sculpture/3D form, what does the concept of installation entail, how might a blog enhance a project of this kind. 

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