Beauty in Repetition: Metalwork and Jewellery is an exhibition at Blackwell, the Arts & Crafts House in the Lake District, by Junko Mori and Jacqueline Ryan. Both artists share a commitment to intensive hand-working and undertake every aspect of the creation of a piece themselves. This is a philosophy which comfortably links Mori and Ryan to the metalsmiths and jewellers of the Arts & Crafts Movement, making Blackwell the perfect venue to display their work.
Like Blackwell’s architect, Baillie Scott, Mori and Ryan share a love of nature. Baillie Scott’s epitaph reads, 'Nature he loved, and next to Nature, Art.' Mori and Ryan both collect plant materials, and create drawings and sketches to abstract detail from them - examples of which are included in the exhibition. Mori and Ryan use the repetition of elements inspired by nature to create a harmonious whole. The sculptural works of Junko Mori and the jewellery of Jacqueline Ryan, like Blackwell itself, seem to incorporate within them some essence of natural beauty.
Beauty in Repetition offers the first opportunity to view their work both individually and in relation to each other: an opportunity which reveals exhilarating resonances and meeting points, as well as insights into their differing working methods and processes. Nature may provide a common source, however, they interpret it in very different ways. Whereas Ryan tends to focus on abstraction, Mori focuses on form; and whereas Ryan plans her work minutely in advance, Mori prefers to allow her work to develop more organically.
Admission: £6.50 (adult) £3.80 (children & full-time students | 10:30am - 5pm
Blackwell Website | Tel. 015394 46139
Blackwell Arts and Crafts
is just one and a half miles south of Bowness in the heart of the Lake
District. The house itself was completed in
1900, designed by Arts and Crafts architect M.H. Baillie Scott as a
holiday home for Sir Edward Holt, a brewer and former Lord Mayor from
Manchester. It’s said to have significant international importance as
it stands at the crossroads of Victorian design and modern 20th century
architecture.
Since 1998, £3.5 million has been raised to restore Blackwell and open it to the public as a high quality Lake District Arts
and Crafts collection. Throughout the house, furniture, objects and
fine art have been introduced to re-awaken the interiors in sympathy
with Baillie Scott's original designs and ideas about the layout and decoration of houses.
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