Exhibition dates: 4th – 27th October 2019
Events: PV – 4th October 2019 6-9pm
Curator talk and Q&A with art historian Sara Riccardi – 25th October 2019 6.30pm
Venue: Saul Hay Gallery, Railway Cottage, 33a Collier Street, Castlefield, Manchester M3 4LZ
‘Composed from Silence’ is a solo exhibition presenting a new body of work by Steven Heaton, created from a collaborative project with art historian Sara Riccardi.
Heaton’s work challenges our pre-conceived familiarity with the environment that surrounds us, our placement within it and the permanence of memories we access to reflect on and balance our lives. Natural form, structure and colour are broken down into basic constructs, rearranged and reordered to resonate outside the normal frequency, offering an alternative viewpoint and a deeper subconscious understanding, a quiet approach to the often misplaced and overlooked beauty hidden within. Heaton’s artworks ask us to slow down and start to consider our surroundings more carefully so we can develop our own individual take on a world we look at, but seldom see.
Working together, Steven and Sara have spent over a year visiting exhibitions in and around Manchester, with lengthy discussions at the artist’s studio. They have been recording their conversations on various points in history, technique and lifestyle from the Renaissance, the Dutch Golden Age of painting, Bauhaus, Abstract Expressionism to the contemporary, on how all these influences inform our outlook and, more importantly, on the possibility of finding the silence beneath the surface that connects everything and everyone together.
Through her regular studio visits, Riccardi has been present throughout the process of developing this new body of work, witnessing various stages of the pieces being realised, from initial sketchbook entries, collage ideas to the final works, offering constructive insights, art historical knowledge, guidance and inspiration to the artist.
The body of work Heaton has created, inspired by their conversations, exhibition visits and studio time together has been carefully selected and curated by Riccardi; along with various materials, tools, books, sketches and excerpts of recordings, it will form the exhibition ‘Composed from Silence’, showing the creative, collaborative process and its results. Not just an art exhibition, but an exhibition about how art is made.