Perrywood Arts

ART IN PERRY WOOD – Artists’ responses to an area of natural beauty

An Open Air Art Trail and Exhibition are the ingredients of an unusual one-day

Art event to take place at Perry Wood, Selling on Sunday 19th August. Situated in an area of outstanding natural beauty, Perry Wood at Selling, near Faversham, is a popular place for walkers and for family outings, covering several acres of the countryside with a rich and varied woodland habitat. Swale Borough Council have given full support to the artists’ project, which will feature, among many creative responses to the environment, an outdoor laboratory and a woodland performance, as well as workshops and activities for adults and children to share. There will also be a temporary exhibition space at Selling Village Hall. Visitors can pick up a footpath map to the Woods, which is about a mile away, or make their own way directly to the car park area of the woodland. The Art Trail will be situated close to the car park, Here visitors will find sculptures, a photographic trail, woodland shelters, the outdoor lab. and artists’ books and paper work. The event runs from 11am to 5pm.

Perry Wood Arts was devised by Sally Higgs, a recent graduate of Canterbury College, who lives in the area and who has been working with local artists and children in workshops to promote understanding and interaction with the area’s rich natural environment. Some of the children’s work will be on display at both sites. There is no admission charge for this event, which has been generously supported by the University of Kent, Friends of Perry Wood, the Chilham Environmental Protection Society and START 2005, an artists’ charity.

Contact details:

Sally Higgs: email: sallymhiggs(at)yahoo.co.uk
Patricia Wilson Smith email: pat.wilson(at)i-machine.co.uk

PERRY WOOD ARTS is the outcome of collaboration between graduate artist Sally Higgs and artist/curator Patricia Wilson Smith, who share a passion and concern for the natural environment. The one-day event has drawn together artists with similar interests, but with very different approaches:

The outdoor lab will be a collaboration between artists Tanya Jones and Ray Newsam from the Biosciences department at the University of Kent. The installation will include magnifying glasses, microscopes and art inspired by microscopy from previous collaborations. Ray Newsam’s professional career has been based around scientific photography and microscopy in the biological sciences, where he records in accurate detail structures as small as molecules. In this exhibition, his interest in the natural world is reflected in a set of monochrome photographs recording woods, water and atmosphere, which show the calming and contemplative nature of the relationship offered by natural world. Tanya’s work, which includes an installation, reflects her interest in art, science and the environment using recycled materials in response to Perry Woods.

Recycling plays an important part in Sheran Baker’s work, using ingredients such as dead rose petals, used tea leaves and tea bags. By making art from discarded materials, she hopes to provoke the viewer into seeing throwaway materials in a different light, politically and aesthetically.

Performance artist ‘Arcaya’ will lead storytelling and dance, and in her role as a wood spirit will entice visitors around the artists’ trail in the woodland. This is a new venture for the dancer, who has recently moved back into her home town, after working in London for several years.

Anne Sellers’ work is a reflection on the histories that can be read in the woodland: the story of what has happened to a tree and how it has responded. Her images are attempts both to capture a moment, and to express perpetual movement.

Sally Higgs’ large Four Seasons Paintings are based on the journeys in Perry wood throughout the year. She is interested in the environment, what is happening in it and the changes that are taking place, and wants to highlight Perry Wood, and raise awareness of this area of outstanding beauty.

Sally Higgs, Tanya Jones and Sheran Baker’s collaborative work is with the children who attended a Summer Garden Fete. It was organised by Chilham Environmental Protection Society (CEPS) at the Old Vicarage and was in response to the trees and natural habitation.

Patricia Wilson Smith’s photography is an attempt to anthropomorphise distinctive features in the woodland. The trees particularly, which constitute the wood, are given their own identity, and visitors are challenged to find them in their wanderings.

Painter James Bradley is a keen landscape painter. He has recently set up a tutor-led art group, where he encourages his students to consider their subject ‘through the eyes of a child’.

Kate Windsor’s work is based loosely on the myth of Diana and Actaeon. Inspired by Titian’s famous painting on this theme, her shelters become objects that celebrate the magic of childhood and the instinct for survival..