| Dates: | 5 June 2024 to 10 June 2024 |
| Times: | 11am - 5pm |
| Email: | jeannie@jeannieclarke.co.ukphilcurryicloud.com |
Many Fingers (in the Pie Factory) is the collective name for this group show featuring five artists working in a number of different genres: three painters, a sculptor and a photographer who also writes. The group initially formed around three women who bonded on the MA Fine Art course at UCA Canterbury. Two of them subsequently brought in their partners and the decision was made to exhibit together.
Jeannie Clarke is fascinated by movement and works closely with dancers from a number of prominent dance companies. Moving away from colour in recent years, she currently works primarily in monochrome. Using multiple shade of black and white, her paintings appear in degrees of transparency and opacity to create a continuum of movement and power as if, like dance itself, everything is transitional
Website: jeannieclarke.com
Instagram: @jeannieclarkeartist
Laura Hills. Using commonplace materials such as waxed brown paper, sewing patterns and wooden frames, Laura creates site-specific installations that often incorporate sound. Her sculptures, explore how we and objects relate to each other and the architectural space in which they are situated. She is drawn to a minimal, abstract aesthetic, with no obvious narrative so that the work can be responded to simply as sculptural objects in space. She is the recipient of the 2024 Gilbert Bayes Award for promising emerging sculptors.
Website: laurahills.co.uk
Marianne Grove creates playful, unsettling compositions and installations that explore social issues based on personal experiences and telling stories that invite the viewer in to share them. Each piece plays a role in a conversation that can be rearranged to reveal different narratives. Displayed together, the painted and sculptural work creates a compelling theatrical tension between the two and three dimensional.
Instagram: @grovemarianne
Kev Hopper. By his own admission, Kev states he has no grand manifesto for his work, preferring to let it speak for itself. His subject matter is largely incidental but usually within a figurative framework. He takes his painting very seriously although with typical self-deprecatory humour says he is tempted to simply say; “I paint livestock.” But then he also paints complex, layered landscapes of pollarded trees, with what appear to be outcrops of rock and drystone walls.
Website: kevhopperpaintings.tumblr.com
Instagram: @hopperdabbles
Phil Curry creates narratives using a combination of photography, written text and music. Fascinated by iconic American landscapes of crumbling old motels and empty swimming pools, Phil embarked on a journey to see if something similar could be found in England. To accompany the images, Phil has also written a short story and composed a short piece of music. The work in this exhibition entitled ‘Anglicana’ is part of a larger body of work, ultimately designed to be a photo book.
Website: seventwentyeightstudios.co.uk
Instagram: @seventwentyeightstudios
Music and Performance
In addition to being visual artists, Kev, Jeannie and Phil are also musicians and Marianne is a circus performer.
Kev Hopper: Is a bassist and electronic musician. He was a founder member of cult indie band Stump. Since the band split in 1988, Kev has been involved in numerous electronic projects and arts festival performances, notably the Nam June Paik awards and at the White Cube and Hayward galleries. He has recorded a number of solo works, which can be found on the artist-led platform Bandcamp.com. kevhopper.bandcamp.com/album/peppa-vesticle
Laura Hills: Is a pianist and composer. She is primarily interested in jazz, minimal and freely improvised music and currently plays with the Lapeko Trio and A Beast with Three Backs. Her solo recordings are also available on Bandcamp. lauraphills.bandcamp.com/album/inside-out
Jeannie Clarke: Is an accomplished vocalist and has sung in a number of bands and choirs both in the North East where she lived for many years and now in Kent. She sang with Big Sing in London and appeared at the London Palladium and now sings with Phil Curry in the Americana duo The Ricotta Layer. Their debut album Music from The Ricotta Layer is available on Bandcamp: thericottalayer.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-ricotta-layer
Phil Curry is a guitarist and singer. He has played in many bands in both the UK and Denmark, where he lived for almost 30 years. He has contributed guitar to numerous albums, including ‘Goldmine’, with the Danish band Full Moon Fever and ‘Another Kind of Girl’ by Danish singer Lina Andersen, which he also co-wrote. He regularly appears at Broadstairs Folk Week as The Ricotta Layer with Jeannie Clarke and has a small studio in Wingham, where he writes and records his own music.
Marianne Grove trained in Japan and at the Circus Space and is founder and main performer with the women’s circus theatre company Circo Rum Ba Ba. The company is known for its elaborate costumes and and theatrical props including a giant dragon and a whale into which the audience can enter. Circo Rum Ba Ba create wonderfully bizarre, offbeat characters and scenarios designed specifically for festivals and events but are equally at home performing in market squares and in front of banks. www.circorumbaba.com