2021: End of year news
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your continuing support for Fen Ditton Gallery: we have been delighted to welcome an increasing number of you through our doors this year as well as keeping in touch with you online. And a warm welcome to those of you who have got to know us through the launch of Hannah’s Young Collectors club: you can read more about that here.
Hannah Munby interviewing Felix Higham at the Young Collectors’ launch, September 2021
The start of 2021 saw us all back in full lockdown but, despite that, Fen Ditton Gallery (led by Hannah) managed to launch our inaugural Contemporary Printmaking Prize in the Spring, which attracted an amazing 560 entries from across the UK. This confirmed our feeling that the art of printmaking is seeing a strong revival with a new generation of artists.
Stefan Tiburcio: Coronavirus: Stay at Home, Save Lives, Protect the NHS - winner of the inaugural Contemporary Printmaking Prize at Fen Ditton Gallery
Huge thanks are due to our invited panel of experts, artists Nigel Hall and Rebecca Jewell and Fitzwilliam Museum curator Elenor Ling, who braved many hours on Zoom to shortlist 40 artists who got to show in the physical exhibition. The overall award went to Stefan Tiburcio for his woodcut, Coronavirus: Stay at Home, Save Lives, Protect the NHS (pictured). More information about the work and prize can be found here. The prize will be a biennial event, with plans already underway for 2023.
2022 launches with another focus on printmaking through the exceptional work of master printmaker Kip Gresham. In the past two years we have included some of his wonderful work with different artists – Nigel Hall, Peter Randall-Page, Richard Long – in our programme. The gallery team, led by Amanda, has now worked closely with Gresham to select ‘The Language of Abstraction’ which celebrates some of his most significant collaborations to date with modern and contemporary sculptors and painters who work in an abstract idiom. Exhibiting artists include Gillian Ayres CBE RA; Wilhelmina Barns-Graham CBE; Willard Boepple; Michael Brick; Bob Edgson; Nigel Hall; Kim Lim; Jeff Lowe; Mali Morris; John McLean. Some of you may have seen the recent Tate Britain exhibition of Kim Lim’s sculpture and prints and we are delighted to have her splendid ‘Syncopation' print as part of this show.
Kim Lim, Syncopation will be exhibited at Fen Ditton Gallery in The Language of Abstraction, open 15th January - 27th February 2022
Please join us for the launch of this exhibition on Friday 14th January, from 6pm – 8pm. RSVP here. The exhibition takes place from the 15th January – 27th February 2022. You can find out more about the exhibition here.
Photography continues to be a key strand in the gallery work as this year Lotte and Hannah (both photographers by training) mounted a 20-year review of Graham Murrell’s photographic career which featured works from the Kettle’s Yard Light Spells book. The exhibition was organised as a moving tribute to the late director of Kettle’s Yard, Michael Harrison, to whom Graham feels he owes the successful opportunities that presented themselves during this period. Lotte’s own photographs continue to find new homes – a sell-out collection from Water/Land this autumn – and we were delighted to include Paul Hart’s work in the same show.
Installation image from Graham Murrell's exhibition, 20 Years On, June 2021
In November, COP26 in Glasgow dominated the world headlines. Our November exhibition Water/Land reflected this as we continued our annual series of art and environment exhibitions. These exhibitions show how active many artists are in using their creative thinking to highlight and sustain our relationship to the natural world. This year’s nominated charity was the Great Fen Project, and we heard an inspiring lecture by Project Manager Kate Carver to a sell-out audience on the importance of sphagnum moss. You can read more about their work here. Hannah added to her podcast series with an interview with Water/Land artist Wycliffe Stutchbury (listen here) and Amanda managed to capture a Zoom video interview with London artist Annie Cattrell, designer of the 2018 installation at Anglia Ruskin University (watch here).
Kate Carver giving talk as part of Water/Land exhibition, November 2021
We always work closely with artists and makers to evolve shows – more of this to come in 2022/2023 including the launch of a new art and environment residency opportunity (details available from Spring 2022). One of the outstanding successes of 2021 was the Voices in Drawing exhibition which began with a conversation between Lotte and recent Royal Drawing School graduate, Felix Higham, and grew into a three hander with two of his fellow graduates Otis Blease and Agnes Treherne. This show inspired many - you can hear Hannah’s podcast interview with Felix here - and we look forward to developing further drawing shows (another strand of real interest to all three of us) in 2022/2023.
Agnes Treherne, Felix Higham and Otis Blease on opening night of Voices in Drawing, September 2021
And finally thanks to all our near neighbours MJP @ The Shepherds for extending our hanging space into parts of their beautiful restaurant. We have found the occasional new art lover through them and we continue to recommend them to food lovers. Find out more about the restaurant here and do visit them if you can soon - it has been a tough year for hospitality but we can all work together creatively to keep good things happening!
We look forward to keeping in touch and this comes with warmest best wishes for the Festive season.
Lotte, Amanda and Hannah x