site07 darbyshire award
1st-30th June
Tuesday-Friday 10am-5pm
Saturday & Sunday 11am-5pm

The Museum in the Park
Stratford Park, Stroud GL5 4AF

tel: 01453 763394
www.stroud.gov.uk/museum

Shortlisted artists are:
Aimee Lax, Angelo Picozzi, Colin Glen, Oliver Marsden, Cleo Mussi, Katrina Horne, Reinhild Beuther, Rosa Davis, Amanda Lorens, Kerry Phippen, Sue Rae,Tim Shore, Sean Taylor.

The site07 darbyshire award will be
announced at 7pm on the Tuesday 5th June at the exhibition at the Museum in the Park.

Darbyshire Framers is a leading framer and art fabricator in the contemporary art world and has attracted a range of high profile artists to commercial and public galleries such as Gagosian, White Cube, Serpentine Gallery and the Royal Academy.

map no.2

This year the exhibition at the Museum
in the Park is of ar tists shor tlisted for the Darbyshire Prize. From this selection a winner will be chosen to receive £1000
worth of framing or art fabrication
services and offered their own exhibition at the newly opened SVA project space. The selectors were Mark Darbyshire of Darbyshire Framemakers,the sculptor Gavin McClafferty and Jean Boyd, a lecturer in art at the University of Gloucestershire. The Darbyshire Prize
Exhibition at the MIP is drawn from a submission open to all artists participating in the site07 festival events.

In choosing works we hoped to reflect the diversity and quality of practice represented at the festival. This cross section itself reflects the current vibrancy of contemporary arts, at both a national and, of course, a more local level. The work submitted spanned a wide range of media and approaches, from painting to performance, from sculpture to film. We nevertheless sought to select a coherent show, and soon found that works in different media began to complement and engage with each other and themes began to emerge.

We noticed that many of the works, as is characteristic of much contemporary art, explored the relationships between sculpture and ceramics, between painting, photography and film. For example, hybrid forms and references across traditions abound and can be found throughout the show. The ambition of several pieces spread further afield, connecting visual art with other forms such as dance, music, myth,literature and cinema.

Some work delights and surprises with
familiar things seen in new ways. Some explores the very nature of seeing, or of being embodied. Some considers larger ideological and political themes, but in subtle and inventive ways. Others ask for a little of our time, and our thoughtfulness.

It has been a pleasure to be involved
with this exhibition. As a sample of the
exciting, high quality work on offer at
site07 festival, this surely demonstrates that the site festival, though based in the Stroud Valleys, is wor thy of national recognition and can only go from strength to strength.

Jean Boyd

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