New Ancient Tales

Dan Dunton, Wendy Newell and Mark Shepherd

Dan Dunton

For a long time, I have been fascinated by collapse and decay.

Walking to work every day in 1951 London, I passed acres of bombed-out homes, shops and warehouses, by this time overgrown with weeds and young trees. I remember, up high, a bedroom, two walls gone, a chair hanging by a thread, a broken mirror, and grey shredded rags hanging where there was once a window.

The idea for this recent work came from, on the one hand Sir John Sloane’s house/museum in Lincoln’s Inn where he cobbled together his vast collection of architectural fragments, and on the other hand from the Roman city of Palmyra in modern-day Syria, ravaged by thousands of years of weather and looting and more recently being blown up by the Taliban.

The pieces are built up from wood and plaster. I like to think that the mirror also makes them useful.
The prints follow the same themes. They are ‘cut-and-paste’ collages made from old, found photographs and architectural drawings.
 

Wendy Newell

Inspired by Roman gladiators and their extraordinary and individual helmets, I have created my own small army. Mine, however, are knitted with wool from the Shetland Isles. I call them ‘soft armour’.

The small figures are made with a steel wire armature and built up with papier maché, then painted. The starting point for these is a love of myths, legends and folk tales. On my regular visits to the British Museum, the small artefact Greek sculptures have been a constant inspiration, as was a wonderful trip to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

Recently, I have been making flying figures – Mr and Mrs Chagall on their wedding day! – and acrobatic circus characters. During the process of making, they seem to develop their own personalities which often take me by surprise.

@Dunton_newell_studio_7

Mark Shepherd

These pieces bring together a collection of visual tales that have taken inspiration from the materials that cast them. Built upon on hand-made papers and dyed and painted fabrics.

Each piece of work begins with just a line or two of an idea, but I never know where it will end. A modern day ‘chose your own adventure’ story.

In fact, several of these pieces were for a long time, unfinished. If they were written stories they would have been shelved in need of further character development or plot.

But I’m a collector / a hoarder, and with patience and curiosity, new paths have been forged. I have found a way to stitch these sentences together differently.

I now have a new tale to the one I imagined. There is only the faintest reference to the original tale, but it’s there if you know where to look.

@Markshepherd_art