Chippenham exhibition to explore pre-history (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Chippenham exhibition to explore pre-history

3:00pm Saturday 31st December 2011 in Chippenham By Fuchsia Singleton-Hoare

A winter exhibition of artwork inspired by the pre-history of Wiltshire titled The Past is Another Country will be showcased at Chippen-ham’s Museum and Heritage Centre early next year.

The exhibition will include the ideas and inspirations of six different artists who are members of the Elementals Art Group, with the project being as much about the process of developing an idea as the finished artwork.

Elemental, which includes Jenny Ford, Jan Knight, Julia Leyden, Christine Shorney, Josephine Sumner and Charlotte Sainsbury, studied archival maps and diagrams, artefacts in museums and photographic aerial views of the landscape from which they distilled their own personal and emotional responses.

Ms Leyden said: “We’ve been working on the project for a few years. We started the group in 2006 but wanted to do something with a theme because there could be so many different views.

“We’re all Wiltshire-based and wanted to do something pre-Wiltshire. We ended up looking at the Bronze Age.

“Jenny, Jan and Josephine were really interested in the stone circles, so spent hours walking and looking and sketching.

“We enjoyed this project so much that we’ve started a new one on pathways and routes in Wiltshire.”

The exhibition will run from Monday, January 9, until Tuesday, April 10, and includes paintings, printmaking, and a 12-verse illustrated poem reflecting each artist’s take on the project.

Melissa Barnett, curator of Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre, said: “This is the first time we’ve had an exhibition of this nature and it is of wonderful quality.”

The heritage centre will also be displaying archaeological artefacts as complementary material to the projects.