CAPTURING PLACE

North House Gallery is delighted to present a new selection of work by the four Bristol-based etchers who showed here three years ago.

“Etching is a medium bound to time, process and permanence yet in the hands of these artists it becomes a way of holding on to the fleeting, the fragile and the forgotten. Their practices are rooted in documenting landscapes and structures in flux. From derelict factories and abandoned buildings to the traces of industrial heritage and the slow weathering of the natural environment, each artist reveals stories embedded within place. What unites them is a fascination with time’s imprint: the marks of decay; the resilience of structures long past their prime; and the beauty found in spaces society has overlooked. Through etching’s alchemy of metal, acid and ink, they preserve what is fragile and transient, translating absence into presence and abandonment into memory.”     -     Ian Chamberlain

Ian Chamberlain's fascination is with manmade structures, once at the cutting edge of technology, but now marooned as historical monuments in the landscape. His work is held in the collections of the V&A, Tate Modern, Bristol Museum, Royal West of England Academy, Pallant House, The University of Chichester and Chippenham Museum. In addition to his studio practice he is Researcher and Senior Lecturer in MA Fineart Printmaking at the University of the West of England.

Ros Ford's etchings in the exhibition relate to structures on the coast in Wales or the Severn Estuary near Bristol. Her work focuses on groynes, breakwaters, and harbours as well as industrial ruins. She works at BV Studios, Bristol and has won national prizes and awards. She is an elected member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers (RE) and the Royal Society of the West of England. (RWA) Her work is held in collections of Bristol and Swansea Universities, the RWA, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery and the Alexandria Library.