Colours - a-n The Artists Information Company

Venue: Ipswich Art School Gallery
Starts: Sunday, July 5, 2015
Ends: Sunday, August 30, 2015
Address: 1, Upper High Street, Ipswich, IP1 3NE Suffolk
Location: East England
Organiser: Ipswich Museum

Colours is an installation in seven sections – one for each colour of the rainbow – using rarely seen objects selected by an artist from the extensive archives of Ipswich Museum. Displayed in seven rooms surrounding the central rotunda (pictured) of the Ipswich Art School Gallery, each intimate gallery is a curiosity cabinet of extraordinary things – or perhaps, quite ordinary things, given new meaning through re-contextualisation. The objects selected for display cross the gamut of the museum’s collections: from geology to costume, archaeology to social history, ethnography to ceramics – as well as from the extensive collection of Victorian taxidermy

Following on from the previous Art School Gallery exhibition, ‘Emotions’ – which displayed a single striking specimen in each gallery without any museological information – ‘Colours’ aims to continue to blur the distinction between art object and museum object, with specimens chosen solely for their dominant colour across a range of disciplines and timelines.

The theme was inspired by the rainbow in John Constable’s painting ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ (1831), currently on show in the Wolsey Gallery of nearby Christchurch Mansion, in their 200th Anniversary Gardens Exhibition.

The artist who made the selection – Lisa Temple-Cox – is an alumni of the Ipswich Art School in its former incarnation. The Art School is aptly now part of the Ipswich Museum site – the museum having been, upon its opening in the High Street in 1880, also a school of Art and Science. The museum is partnered on-site with world-reknowned arts organisations Pacitti Company and the New Wolsey Theatre.

The Gallery is open Tues – Sun, and the Museum is open Tues – Sat, 10am – 5pm. Admission is free to both venues.

Included in this exhibition is an 18C Delft ware ‘puzzle jug’, which was accidentally broken by a young visitor and painstakingly reconstructed by duty officer and trainee conservator Carrie Willis. (Ask at the desk to see the ‘before’ photograph, and follow the story here: www.ipswich.gov.uk/content/breaking-news)

Running over the summer holidays, the exhibition is family-friendly, with ‘fun facts’ for children and a colourful post-it wall for responses to the work on display. During the course of the show there will be a series of family arts workshops, each led by a different artist, focussing on a different colour, and exploring a different material or craft process.

Family Day workshops cost £3 per child (accompanying adults free) and are run on a drop-in basis of 30 minutes between 10.30 – 12.30 / 1.30 – 3.30. They take place in the learning studio within the gallery building.

Workshops in brief: Sat. 27th June: Jackie Davies (red) printing signs and posters / Sat. 4th July: Nicola Burrell (orange/yellow) colourful card constructions / Weds. 29th July: Anne Schwegmann-Fielding (green) mosaic coasters / Weds. 5th Aug: Alison Stockmarr (blue) collaged museum postcards / Weds. 12th Aug: Michaela Rice (indigo) cyanotype photograms / Weds. 19th Aug: Lisa Temple-Cox (violet) patterned paper clay / Weds. 26th Aug: Sarah Sabin (red/orange) mod-roc vessels.

For more information contact Ipswich Museum: High St, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK, IP1 3QH tel: 01473 433551 email: [email protected]

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