Bringing an exhibition outside - Hendon & Finchley Times
19 May 2011
Driving along the sweeping private road to The Grove, I noticed a life-sized sculpture of a horse standing on the hill, I was later to learn it was made out of galvanised steel by Greg Johns. Then as I walked across the grounds to the five star hotel, I passed a huge red painted steel structure of three sails by Spanish artist Teo San Jose.
The Grove has recently opened its 300 acres to a sculpture exhibition on a grand scale. Instead of these artworks being exhibited in a gallery with white walls, they are being shown off among the large cedar trees, the small bushes, along the water, by the restaurant, in the walled garden and out on the expansive landscape.
Twenty-nine artists are showing their work and 81 sculptures are on show. The artworks vary in style from the figurative and the representative to the abstract; and in all kinds of media - from granite and marble to glass and steel.
Curator Virginia Grub says: "I wanted to bring the exhibition outside onto this fantastic canvas to show off some of the great young talented British artists and the more established members of the Royal Academy and the Royal British Society of Sculptors."
There are three different walks to go on to explore the scupltures - the walled garden, canal to the stables and the formal gardens - on each of the walks established artists' work sites next to the creations of the young and up and coming.
One of the leading sculptors showing her work is Dorothy Brook, from Hampstead, who has been a sculptor for 20 years. She has two pieces in resin on show in the wallled garden - Equilibrium, which is of a dancer standing on her hand, and a curvaceous bronze called Geisha Girl.
"I'm inspired by dance and movement," says Dorothy, who was a graphic designer before she became a sculptor. "For Equilibrium I was inspired by an advert at the back of a Saddler's Wells programme. I see these beautiful lines. I like to exaggerate the lines against the background."
Virginia, who spent 18 months setting up the exhibition, remarks: "This exhibition is a collaboration between art and leisure, the emerging sculptors and the established artists, between the British and the international."
She says: "Art should be dispensible to everybody and not just the elite. It should be enjoyed by all, that's why it is wonderful to have the exhibition in the hotel because you get all walks of like coming here."
Lindi Bilgorri, Hendon & Finchley Times
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