The Artists
Gill Hickman
Born Kent, 1955. Gill trained in Art and Education at Kinston. She is a successful artist and the co-ordinator of the two artist-run Skylark Galleries on London's South Bank.
She produces striking textural embossed prints using an etching press, powerful close up photographs of urban textures and new works on canvas where the textures are enlarged and expanded.
Joanne McDonald
Born Paisley, 1973. Joanne has completed a first class BA (Hons) in Tapestry and is currently studying for an MFA in tapestry at the Edinburgh College of Art.
Her work is about history, history in general, her history. She uses found objects, usually second-hand books, newspapers, journals and their built-in history is her basic
attraction, the source of their power as objects.
She uses all types of printed material, and acts as editor in the recycling of this. She is in charge of the process of change. Her role is the most important in
this transformation. She takes the material, sifts through it, evaluates it, selects, reshuffles, changes, reconstructs and thus produces a new piece of work.
The deconstructed books, paper etc. are still redolent with their original history, but they have not only a new form and an entirely new visual identity, but
also interpret our understanding of them through their incomprehension as written forms. From now on they will have a new history as well as their former one.
The discovery of how a material can be manipulated and, the qualities and possibilities of the material itself excites her and this often leads to re-produce on a large scale.
The visual look is paramount: it is about the pattern, the colour and the edges.
She is intrigued by Tom Phillip's "Humament", his reworking of a Victorian novel; studied Christian Boltanski and the idea that the truth of the past is unknowable;
interested in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and wondered about the book as a dangerous object; and finally, pondered on books as something which carry information
from one time to another, but often as open to misrepresentation or as incomprehensible as her re-workings.
Carol Peace
Born Knarborough, 1970. Carol lives and works in London. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in sculpture from the Winchester School of Art. In 1994 she won first prize in Sculpture
at the Art Show in London. She has numerous exhibitions, mostly in Bristol and
London and can already look back on a solid achievement. Last year she completed
the "Drawing Year" at the renowned Prince Charles Drawing School.
With her sculptures and drawings she pushes forward to the very core of modern life. Her works tell of the relationship between people - of closeness and distance, of being
together while simultaneously being apart from one another, of intimacy and loss and, of support and friendship.
Her bronzes have a common focus: How do people express themselves in order to find their way in the present-day world? How do they deal with the difficult task?
Where exactly do they stand in life? And how does the world react?
Carol likes to experiment with different materials. For the most part, she combines resin with the bronze. This in turn renders her sculptures warmer and lighter
and has become the trademark of this British artist. She uses clay as if she were making a drawing. Every line is clearly defined and the bigger the sculpture,
the speedier the lines are worked out. "During this phase I am highly concentrated and totally lost in my thoughts. When disturbed, it seems as if I am waking from a sweet dream."
Lois Carson
Born Hertfordshire, 1961. In 2003, Lois completed a BA (Hons) in Fine Art at Gray’s School of Art Aberdeen, was artist in residence at Glenfiddich and received a
fellowship from the Royal Scottish Academy to study in Florence. The materials she uses in her sculptures vary from the traditional stone or bronze, to a more contemporary
medium such as Perspex and digitally generated images. The issues which underpin her work often evolve around the passage of time and how through image, subject and
process, the presence of passing time may be sensed.
In her latest series, The Rowan Sculptures, capture sequential images of a Rowan tree blossoming that have been transferred to slices of Perspex and then assembled
together into a cube. The final result manages to amalgamate the effects of time-lapse photography, holography and minimalist sculpture: a fragile explosion of form and
colour suspended in space.
The fourth cube in the series, is a more literal representation of the Rowan tree. This sculpture is a metaphor for the still, dormant and cold of the Rowan tree
in winter. "Rowans Red", "Rowans Green" and "Rowans White" represent what is there, where as “Rowan’s Blue” implies the notion of the tree without its coat of foliage,
dormant and still. But ironically, although we as the viewer are able to see the tree, it’s not actually there. As the tree has been carved out from within,
what the viewer actually sees is the negative of the tree and the space encasing the tree. This relates to the notion of all that is missing during the period of the
trees dormancy.
The images of the subject used posses certain qualities, which compliment the working process, as do the materials used. In the natural world these qualities
can be found gradually changing, often over lengthy periods of time, so much is lost to us visually during the passing of time. Lois’s aim is to preserve these
moments through a visual image and form.
Lewis Banks
Lewis Banks is a designer-maker based in the Fife village of Aberdour.
A common theme of his work is the use of enameled copper to create representations of the natural world.
‘Sea’ is a work inspired by the view of the Firth of Forth from The Boathouse, in which Lewis has tried to invoke a sense of the movement and life of
the water and the ever-changing scenes afforded the eye.
Philip Hearsey
Philip Hearsey has spent more than 30 years working as an architectural, interior and furniture designer. From this he has developed an enduring interest in working with wood and metal in all forms and the making of highly individual furniture and accessories. He left Camberwell School of Art to go into the building a joining industry, before turning to design in 1975. His passion is British hardwoods combined with hand-forged iron and steel, bronze in particular; stone and many other materials have also found an important place in his work. Whereas bronze is most commonly used to reproduce a work originally conceived in another medium, Philip uses the sand-casting process to create vessel forms that honour and explore the qualities of bronze as a material in its own right.
As an architect / designer, reference to constructed form is inevitable: paradoxically he is most powerfully inspired by the natural landscape and sense of place of the Herefordshire/Welsh borders where he lives and works.
At the simplest level, using the basic vocabulary of ovals, circles and triangles, and their solid 3D counterparts, he creates elegant objects that do not rely solely upon their intrinsic beauty but possess an essential presence and resonance.
The rim is critical; it is the interface between the container and that which is contained, it is most usually bright polished and not only reveals the beauty, colour and solidity of the material but crucially exemplifies any asymmetry or dichotomy between the outer surface of the piece as a whole, the "container", and the space or void that is contained. Philip is also intrigued by the surface and the alchemy of patination, not because of any obsession with technique but because the possibilities are challenging, unpredictable and seemingly endless. The colouring is not a coating, it is the surface itself: it is the result of a self-transformation of the material, by the material, and the coloured surface, even if it becomes encrusted, is a manifestation and celebration of the bronze itself.
Peter Nellist
Peter’s work is inspired by his experiences of walking and climbing in the Scottish hills and mountains and the sense of “another place” that is found in these environments.
James Andrew Oldfield
Andrew immigrated to the Kingdom of Fife from London nine years ago with his Scottish wife and has now settled in Aberdour. A practicing designer, he is currently working in Kirkintilloch for a packaging company.
He has worked with metals for over 13 years in many forms; creative giftware, sculptures for a pop video, structural steelwork in the Royal Albert Hall, a greyhound for "Father Ted" and closer to home an exhibition system for Fife Council Arts – currently in use at the Lochgelly Centre.
This group of sculptures is inspired by his love of the coastal environment. Stony beaches, kelp fronds and crustacean forms all find reference in the works. The actual trigger for the first pieces of work was a request from a friend to create an earring stand for craft shows. The need to have a very stable structure with a small footprint (and the availability of a house brick with holes in it) started the thought process that led to the first "Kelp" concepts.
The two pieces on display at The Boathouse are a further development of the plant theme, with more detailed work on the leaves and there attachments to give a more plant like feel to the work. Mediterranean seaweed off the Turkish coast had a direct influence on the shaping of the fronds on the works. The fan shape has come from coral.
Above all, a sense of fun runs though the work, and he hopes you enjoy the shapes and sounds these forms make as much as he has enjoyed making them.
Things to do
Travel Diaries
The Boathouse as a Venue
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Weather at The Boathouse
What's In The Forth?
Client Logins
Files for Downloading
- Boathouse Introduction
- ForthRoad Brand Story