I’ve no idea why, but I often struggle with 3D art in a gallery. A space that seems perfectly suited to a flat two dimensional image somehow seems inadequate to a piece of sculpture. I suppose a painting or photograph operates on a plane, and you never see beyond that surface.
With a piece of three dimensional art, you can always see round and beyond it, and that, for me, always causes problems, because what you see beyond or around the sculpture affects your response to it.
Enter Out of Nature, a sculpture exhibition outdoors in the grounds of Newport House, Almeley, Herefordshire. Associated with the Foley family of Great Witley, the Watt’s of steam engine fame, and Shakespeare’s Falstaff, Newport House is hosting the exhibition till October 25 2015.
There are sculptures that look like art, and sculptures that look like fun. Organic sculptures by Kate Raggett that have the fragrance of country fruit, and wooden carvings by Ed Elliott, one of which fits nicely in with the current ITV series based in Herefordshire, Midwinter of the Spirit, a somewhat lumpy and unsatisfying tale of demonry in the county.
But the main thing is, the sculptures are in their natural setting, which makes a world of difference to how you see them.
There’s a cafe, it only costs five quid to get in, and you can lose yourself for several hours in the lovely surrounds of a Herefordshire house that you probably never knew existed.
The artists are friendly and approachable, I ate some of Kate Raggett’s sculpture (with her permission) and what else can you get for a fiver nowadays?
Pop along, have a moan at art and all that, then come away realising that another world exists alongside your current one, and there’s a fair chance that there is more over the horizon too.
