Conversations with Magic Stones
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, June 17 to September 16
01856 850 209
www.pierartscentre.com
CONVERSATIONS with Magic Stones is the culmination of a three year research project, led by Professor Mark Edmonds of York University, into the use of stones as tools in Orkney from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. The project has had a focus, Edmonds says on their informative website (www.orkneystonetools.org), on the Neolithic, largely because previous research has naturally gravitated to that rich period in Orkney’s history. But in this three part exhibition, held simultaneously at Stromness Museum (focusing on the social history of collecting), Orkney Museum (looking at stone artefacts that have washed up in Orkney) and the Pier Arts Centre, the net is cast wider.
The Pier Arts Centre takes a more contemporary look at the subject through the work of Barbara Hepworth, the Modernist sculptor who made her home in St. Ives, Cornwall, in 1949. Her own work was influenced by her interest in prehistory – she collected postcards of megaliths and much of her writing, Edmonds points out, revolved around the subject. The stimulus to making, form and abstraction of such artefacts was what interested Hepworth.
Displayed here are Hepworths from the Pier’s collection, including Two Forms (Orkney) made in 1967, and items from Hepworth’s own collection of artefacts, from Cycladic figures to a stone arrowhead from the Sahara, with many borrowed from the Hepworth Wakefield and the artist’s estate. The emphasis is on items and tools that help amplify the relationship between the hand and the object by showing Hepworth’s working practice. Loan highlights include a bronze cast of the artist’s hand, carved marble objects and some of Hepworth’s carving tools.
Across the three venues, making and what that means culturally, are prominent. Tools are objects to be used but also links between man and landscape. Do not miss.
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