Now Open Sat/Sun
Now Open Sat/Sun
Working In Thin Places
Exhibition and Development of New Works
13th October-12th November
Abstract painter Annie Luke Turner is working on 3 new paintings in HARI, inspired by her ongoing interest in walking in Thin Places - notably Julian's Bower labyrinth in Lincolnshire, and her relationship with the Lake District, but also her encounters with places in Hull where she has relocated.
As she works, Annie will be reflecting on her feelings and practical responses to the developing paintings.
Annie will be holding abstract mark making and deleting workshops, and HARI will be responding to her theme with Monday Musings and Phygital Phonics 3.
Annie Luke-Turner STATEMENT
When I start work it begins with a feeling for a place.
For me that’s always rooted in a sense of what might have been there before – whatever it is that might have made that place significant.
My parents always had a feel for these places. They were climbers and my mum has always loved history, especially pre-history – so as children, my brother and I were always out in the woods and hills and looking for old stones with cup and ring marks up on the moors.
I always loved walking – and still do. I remember walking behind my dad by rivers and over hills, placing my feet where he’d placed his. I love that feeling of moving through a place slowly, the rhythm of the walk, the way you can let your thoughts run free.
Alkborough has a special atmosphere. It’s a sleepy village in North Lincolnshire, up on the hill overlooking the confluence of the Humber, the Ouse and the Trent.
The view is wide and far – on a good day you can see York minster, distant power stations, the Derbyshire hills. It’s not hard to imagine the Viking longboats and medieval traders that would have made their way up and down the rivers.
And there’s also the ancient and mysterious turf maze, Julian’s Bower – possibly a kind-of medieval entertainment, possibly a form of penance, maybe a place associated with spring rites and fertility…
When you enter the maze there’s a sense that time is suspended, you’ve entered another world away from the everyday, a timeless place and you’re retracing steps that have been walked over and over again by countless people over hundreds of years.
When I start to paint, I don’t know what the marks that I make will be or how the painting will evolve. I don’t hold a particular image in my mind, but I try to keep in touch with the feeling of the place. My paintings have lots of layers and marks, for me that’s a connection to the sense of the past.
For me, these paintings are about walking – they take me back to walking in my dad’s footsteps.
And they’re about the way time passes. And how what has been before us is still with us.
