Limited edition 'Salt-cat' print on sale

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Salt-cat (keeps them at home) | 2021 | Limited edition screen print

This newly released screenprint draws on a site-specific installation I created with Megan Calver for 'Open-Up' at Hestercombe Gardens (2020-21).

Salt-cat was a type of cake made by pigeon breeders to entice their birds to stay or return home. Our installation included 16 fragments of text relating to this historic practice. They were drawn from Hestercombe’s archive, as well as sources such as The Sportsman's Dictionary of 1800. We've combined three of these texts in a new limited-edition print. The colours reference the plumage and feet of Columba livia domestica, the homing pigeon.

This edition of 30 was screen-printed for us by George Barron at Double Elephant Print Workshop in Exeter. They are hand-pulled three-colour prints on Fabriano 300gsm paper and measure 49cm x 36cm (a little smaller than A2). Individually signed and numbered, they are priced at £60.00 each unframed including UK postage & packing.

The print will shortly be available from the Hestercombe Gallery shop and also direct from my Instagram as part of the Artist Support Pledge.  Alternatively, contact me or Megan via our websites.

Correspondence 01 extra

 
While Savinder Bual and I were working on our individual submissions for Correspondence 01, we made a shared piece of work: Time Travellers. 

As artists, we have common interests in art and science, and the measurement of time and space. As a starting point, Savinder shared the animations of Al Jarnow with me. We started thinking together about shadows and sundials, and looking for ways to physically experience the movement of the Earth in relation to the Sun. We also wanted to make simultaneous work together that would span time and distance. 

At an agreed time, we started walking towards each other from our separate locations, she in Hitchin near Letchworth, me in Exeter. We kept going for the duration of the time difference between us by the Sun (as opposed to our shared official time of GMT+1 / British Summertime).

We later documented our action as a more formal score that can be performed by people anywhere in the world.

Correspondence 01

Photos by Corey Bartle Sanderson from the Correspondence 01 install at Broadway Gallery, Letchworth

 

Savinder Bual | Sundial, True Time, Letchworth | 2021 

Savinder Bual | Sundial, True Time, Letchworth | 2021
Gabrielle Hoad | Two-handed timekeeper | 2021

Correspondence01, curated by Kristian Day and Matt Burrows

17th August - 5th September 2021

Broadway Gallery,  2 The Arcade, Letchworth Garden City SG6 3EW

Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street EX4 3LS

Alexis Soul-Gray Oliver Kirkham Gabrielle Hoad Andy Cluer Adam Garratt Molly Rooke Janet Sainsbury Tobias Francis Jackson Sprague Will Luz Abi Freckleton Anna Fairchild Maria Meyer Jessica Wetherly Magdalena Gluszak-Holeksa Liz Harrington Jack Anthony Taylor Helena McGrath Freya Pocklington Savinder Bual

Two-handed timekeeper

Two-handed timekeeper (left & right) | 2021 | Three minutes of digital video x 2

“The railway time is shown by a silvered minute hand, 

the minute hand denoting the true time being gilt.”* 

During the mid-19th century, with the coming of the railways, many of Exeter’s public clocks had two minute-hands, one showing Railway Time (or GMT), the other Local Time, which was approximately 14 minutes behind by the sun.

Two-handed timekeeper is derived from a recording of shadows moving across a playing field in Exeter on 14 July 2021. The footage has been split, superimposed and speeded up to make visible the solar time difference between Letchworth and Exeter. 

This work arose from shared research and experiments made with Savinder Bual during the Correspondence01 project. It reflects on human-made rules and scales of measurement versus the independent movement of celestial objects.

Two versions of the video will be shown simultaneously: one at Exeter Phoenix, the other at Broadway Gallery Letchworth.  The video still above combines both versions into one image.

Left: Two-handed timekeeper  ̶  Exeter and Letchworth (Longitude -3.542433 and -0.22703)

Right: Two-handed timekeeper  ̶  Letchworth and Exeter (Longitude -0.22703 and -3.542433)

Correspondence01, curated by Kristian Day and Matt Burrows

17th August - 5th September 2021

Broadway Gallery,  2 The Arcade, Letchworth Garden City SG6 3EW

Exeter Phoenix, Gandy Street EX4 3LS

*The clock at St John’s Church, Fore Street, Exeter, as described by the Exeter Flying Post in 1845. Source: Clive N Ponsford Time In Exeter (1978)

Ghost Moth and other manifestations

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Ghost Moth | Exeter Phoenix Platform | 2021

Between 2nd and 8th August, I was lucky enough (along with Megan Calver) to be part of Exeter Phoenix’s Platform series, which offers artists based in the South West region opportunities to test out ideas, new work and recent developments in their practice.

Our opportunity took the form of a short, experimental residency, during which we reconsidered our predominantly site-specific practice for a gallery environment. Working quickly with a limited range of low-cost and recycled materials, we created a number of test pieces and prototypes, with particular focus on scale, impact and use of space.

Although there was no pressure from Exeter Phoenix to be visible to the public, an audience felt important in the context of what we were trying to do, and so we challenged ourselves to have work in progress on view through a ‘porthole’ we created in the whited-out gallery doors. We also invited a few colleagues and contacts to come into the space by appointment. Curator Matt Burrows provided additional mentoring and support throughout.

It was a great opportunity to ‘think big’ and scale up our work. We were able to experience how different objects, materials or presentation styles read in the formal gallery setting, and how they ‘talk’ to one another and shift in meaning.

Some of the work was made quickly and spontaneously, some developed over the week, some was abandoned after only brief display, some was intentionally ephemeral, and some made purely for ourselves.

Gabrielle Hoad & Megan Calver | Exeter Phoenix Platform | 2021

The above image is from Monday 9th August when we dismantled the temporary weekend exhibition and, in doing so, made a whole new iteration of a sculpture we nicknamed 'the lighthouse' – possibly my favourite version of all.

https://exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/calver-and-hoad/

Platform residency

The Buffer Zone | 2016 | Photo: Susie David

I will be working with Megan Calver as part of Exeter Phoenix’s Platform series from 2nd to 6th August 2021 (Covid restrictions permitting). Platform offers artists opportunities to test out ideas, new work and recent developments in their practice.

During this short experimental residency, we will reconsider our site-specific practice for a gallery environment.  Expanding on our shared preoccupation with language and communication, we plan to improvise activations of space, body and matter, and explore new ways of presenting our outcomes. The residency provides us with an invaluable joint workspace to develop a new project.

We'll be working in the gallery Monday 2nd - Friday 6th August, with additional work on show through the gallery door in the evenings and during 7th and 8th August.

Exeter Phoenix Galleries, Gandy Street EX4 3LS

Immersed in Durlston

I’ve just returned from an intense but rewarding few days working with Megan Calver at Durlston Country Park in Dorset. Continuing a project we began at the start of this year, where we worked remotely with the Rangers’ Daily Diary, we've now been able to immerse ourselves completely and experience the site at all hours of the day and night. Two striking features were the spectacular wildflower meadows, ringing with skylark song, but also the dense and dripping fog that rolled in and out throughout our stay. This was only a recce to get to know the site, its inhabitants and its custodians, but we were inspired to make a few experimental photos and videos that will inform future work.