08/09/2015

Laura Ellen Bacon at Hall Place, Bexley

Hall Place, near Bexleyheath.
Curated by Artwise Curators as part of a show called Watershed.

On Sunday 6 September, sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon unveiled Course a large sculptural work, made from 20 bundles of 6ft Somerset willow, which appears to meander from the formal landscape of Hall Place into the waters of the River Cray below. Laura Ellen Bacon was Hall Place’s first artist in residence, the work was made during her residency in August, and will be in situ until 31 December 2015.

As Laura Ellen Bacon says: ‘Course is deeply curvaceous work, at once being peaceful yet uncanny, having a quiet, seeping stillness but also a momentum that seems to be guiding its weight towards the clear depths below. The ‘carved’ channel within the work carries an abstract notion of the weight of the water on a journey that we can only witness a small part of.’

The River Cray, a chalk stream, into which the woven work descends, is one of 200 chalk streams in the world (the majority of which are in the UK). This residency is in collaboration with WWF-UK and stemmed from Hall Place’s summer exhibition Watershed: Art, play and the politics of water.