Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
Heat Exchange 2 is on its way to Erfurt, Germany and the wonderful Galerie Waidspeicher in the Kulturhof Krönbacken is our next destination.
Elizabeth and I invited six new artists to join the exhibition there.
The two previous exhibition venues, Craft in the Bay in Cardiff and St Andrews Museum in Fife had very limited wall and display space. TheKulturhof Krönbacken is a large gallery and we thought it an appropriate and excellent opportunity to show six artists from the groupin Erfurt to mark our working together from 2004 at the Künstlerwerkstätten.
The new artists, participating in Erfurt, are
Arnold Bauer (Germany)
Annemarie Timmer (Netherlands)
Eva Kučerová-Landsbergrová (Czech Republic)
Martin Schulze (Germany)
Rolf Lindner (Germany)
Uta Feiler (Germany)
Uta Feiler, Licht und SchattenUta Feiler, Licht und SchattenUta Feiler, BroscheUta Feiler, Brosche, La Gomera 2Uta Feiler, Brosche, La GomeraUta Feiler, BroscheRolf LindnerRolf LindnerMartin Schulze, work in progress, print on enamelMartin Schulze, work in progress, print on enamelMartin Schulze, work in progress, print on enamelMartin Schulze, work in progress, print on enamelMartin Schulze, work in progress, print on enamelEva Kučerová-Landsbergrová The Winter mysteries IEva Kučerová-Landsbergrová The Winter mysteries IIEva Kučerová-Landsbergrová The Winter mysteries IIIEva Kučerová-Landsbergrová Winter in the MountainAnnemarie Timmer Annemarie likes to work with ornaments and aims to give the hard steel a soft, textile expression.Annemarie Timmer, TextielAnnemarie Timmer This enamel is inspired by a village in Italy, stuck to the mountains at twilight. She drew it with liquid enamel in a baloon.Annemarie Timmer Those panels are inspired by walking the dog in winter every day in the woods around Alkmaar. Usually the weather is gray and the light is white.Arnold Bauer Two FiguresArnold BauerArnold Bauer Three FishArnold Bauer, Fish on a Plate
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
Here are some more images from the Cardiff exhibition in Craft in the Bay. We love the close-ups, which show the beautiful qualities of the enamel surface. All images were taken by Toril Brancher, photographer, for Craft in the Bay, apart from two images by Susan Cross.
Elizabeth Turrell and Marjorie SimonElizabeth TurrellElizabeth TurrellElizabeth TurrellElizabeth TurrellTamar de Vries WinterTamar de Vries WinterTamar de Vries WinterTamar de Vries WinterRamon Puig CuyasMelissa CameronMelissa CameronKathleen BrowneKathleen BrowneKathleen Browne
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
After a beautiful exhibition in Cardiff, Heat Exchange II is traveling to St. Andrews Museum, Fife. We are very much looking forward to Scotland and meeting up with the Scottish artists and friends.
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
Gudrun Wiesmann lives and works in Germany.
Sie hat Architektur studiert und bis 2000 als Architektin gearbeitet.
Seit 2004 ist sie freiberufliche professionelle Künstlerin mit den Arbeitsgebieten künstlerische Fotografie, Email, Schmuck und Collage. Aktuell beschäftigt sie sich mit Emailsiebdruck auf Stahl.
It has been a week since I returned from Erfurt, a time spent being inquisitive and playing. Before leaving I decided to allow myself time to experiment, not to rush towards creating a finished artifact, but to explore. And it was RED I wanted; subtle, beautiful, glowing. Whether the large panels will or can be red, I don’t know yet.
It was a great time in Erfurt; exchanging thoughts with Elizabeth’s original group, Gudrun Wiesmann, Annemarie Timmer, Eva Kucerova and Martin Schulze. Agnieszka Lipp joined us later.
I also met the lovely Fritz Meierhofer and his wife Margit Hart. Fritz currently has an exhibition in Ruthin (http://ruthincraftcentre.org.uk/whats-on/gallery-1-2/) It looks a wonderful exhibition. Both shared so very openly and happily about their work and ideas.
Smallish pieces are always my starting points, testing out surfaces and cutting structures, before embarking on the larger panels. At the moment I am hyper critical with myself; is this actually reflecting what I am trying to say? Always more drawing I can hear myself say, but at some point it is necessary to just go for it.
So, here are a few images from my time in Erfurt, my ‘table’, some test pieces and good conversations with Gudrun Wiesmann.
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
I hope that Cath and Griff’s studio is nearing completion, I find myself without a studio at the moment too. Making in materials has all but stopped. My workshop is being rebuilt and extended, which is very exciting and will be a great improvement, but it also means not having a space to work. So I am trying to be productive by reading, gathering visual inspiration and drawing experiments.
As I said in an earlier post, my interest in spaces, which are situated neither on the inside nor the outside, is continuing and my fascination with the ‘fabric of gaps’ is on-going. I have just returned from a trip to Northern Italy – Milan, Bologna, Padua and Venice, with so much wonderful inspiration. Below is a small selection; the most special is the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II in Milan.
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
This year I am collaborating with my partner, Griff (Andrew Griffiths) for Heat Exchange, and like Stephen, we are starting a new body of work following an exhausting winter during which we moved house and as yet have no studio.
During the summer we were inspired by World War II pill boxes around the coast of South West Wales, ruins that are both familiar and intriguing, concrete husks that mark a destination or turning point on a Sunday walk.
a WWII gun emplacement in Ferryside
The bunkers are quietly disappearing, immersed by brambles and crumbling from the effects of westerly rainstorms. The architecture is modernist and brutal, ugly in aggressive symbolism but softened through time like fortified castles. They also represent security and protection and bare witness to history though never used as intended and therefore dysfunctional: spaces constructed within a few weeks that are now forgotten scars in the landscape.
These empty places are now spaces for our imagination and focal point for a challenging shared project…!
Catherine works across discipline boundaries, excited by the potential of combining traditional processes with new technologies. She is an artist and educator, and lives in Wales.
Our time in Erfurt was great; a harmonious and creative sharing of workshop space and time to reflect. I love Melissa’s sensitive ‘sound scapes’ posts on this Blog; it is one of my prevailing memories: the gentle sound of abrading, ‘squishing’ the screen, tapping, the sound of Ramon and Silvia sawing in the jewellery workshop. All the sounds of busy artists creating work, focusing on the materials. I am also very excited to see Silvia and Ramon’s pieces finished and how they developed after Erfurt in the studio in Barcelona.
Beautiful work, dear Silvia and Ramon!
My own work in Erfurt attempted to explore the ‘drawing breaking out of the frame’, which made the laser cut metal pieces fragile and the firing process precarious. I had some technical problems with tension in the metal and enamel and consequently warping, so overall a challenging experience. Thankfully there were some pieces, which made it through the many making stages almost as I intended.
Stairway to Heaven, laser cut steel, enamel, laser engraving, felt
Now I am in the process of researching my new direction and I will write about this as it grows. In July 2014 I was awarded an Arts Council of Wales grant to develop a new body of work for a solo exhibition in 2016 and of course, Heat Exchange 2, in 2015. This grant will start in January 2015, which gives me a little ‘breather’ to think and identify my direction.
There is a focus of course, which has been running through my work since I began making ceramics in the 1980s: an interest in the space in-between (all my work is always endlessly cut and pierced), rhythm, movement, chaos and activating space. I would now like to see this conceptual interest reflected in the making process by exploring rhythmical processes such as laser engraving (horizontal movement, embedding an image into the enamel), exploring the jacquard loom (again the horizontal weaving process) and 3D printing.
3D printing is also one such ‘rhythmical’ process, minutely building up layers, reminiscent of the weaving process. In April 2014 I carried out a 3D printing residency at the Product Development and Research Centre at Cardiff Metropolitan University and I can see the potential of the pieces I created there. For me this is a step into the direction of ‘activating space’, taking the 2D piece off the wall, producing a smaller 3D companion. I am very curious to know what will happen and whether this ‘process’ will be right for me. At the moment I am trying to learn Rhino and finding it surprisingly hard.
electroplated
So, this is where I am now; very exciting. I would love to hear from you all, where you are in your work, what you are thinking?
Beate Gegenwart is an enamelist and educator originally from Germany who lives and works in Wales, UK. Her studio is located on the beautiful Gower peninsular and she is a Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea School of Art (University of Wales Trinity Saint David). Her large enamel works exhibit an expressive interplay between polished stainless steel and fields of delicately applied and inscribed enamel.
She is currently supported by a major production grant from the Arts Council of Wales.
