JOHN SMALLEY
artist / teacher
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Overtures and Elegies: A Midwinter's Journey
Works by
J o h n S m a l l e y
Artist in Residence
13th - 27th January, 2023
St. John’s, West Byfleet, Surrey
This exhibition by the Chertsey-based artist will feature a series of drawings in graphite and in silverpoint,
paintings in oils and in acrylics, and collages and sculptural assemblages constructed from found objects.
“On this midwinter’s journey through memory, the imagination and a succession of beginnings and endings, I will set out to explore some of the ways humans deal with what we think we know and the great tug of what we can never know. Drawing and painting are central to my practice, but I also work with “cultural artifacts”: photographs, diagrams,
architectural fragments/ornaments, bells, clocks, tools for charting and measuring and optical lenses of various kinds. To begin the New Year in the Prayer Corner at St Johns, I'll attempt to create an environment full of quiet conversations between images and objects—exploring along the way, intersections between culture and nature, dream, memory, and myth.”
Collages Assemblages in situ ...
Acrylic Study of a Cedar of Lebanon in progress during the residency… this will have a text by the English poet Robert Herrick inscribed above and below it:
O years and age farewell: Behold I go, Where I do know Infinity to dwell. And these mine eyes shall see All times, how they are lost i’ th’ sea of vast eternity: – Where never moon shall sway the stars; but she and night shall be Drown’d in one endless day.
I very much enjoyed working in the beautiful silence of the church… from 10:00am to 3:00pm each day… there was a lovely opening reception, lots of visits from Year 3 and 4 students at the junior school next door and some really nice interactions with parishioners who’d come to see the exhibition… during the second week, Keith Elford, the vicar and I did a lunchtime poetry reading accompanied by some contemplative guitar music.
Overtures and Elegies: A Midwinter's Journey
Words / Poems / Stories / Guitar Improvisations
Spoken / Read / Told / Played
Tuesday, 24th January: 1:00pm
St. John's, West Byfleet
Works by:
Edward Thomas Mary Ruefle Walt Whitman Emily Dickinson
Simon Armitage Lisa Robertson Charles Wright Alice Oswald
Raymond Carver R.s. Thomas
I had many wonderful in-depth conversations with people as they viewed the exhibition in the quiet of this church environment. There seemed to be a willingness among many to engage about themes and ideas—exactly the kind of engagements I relish, in fact, and I am thinking that perhaps I should pursue this kind of environment for future exhibitions…