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The
Market House, Great Torrington, North Devon
 The Market House is a grand pink and white building, complete with a cupula, above the Pannier Market in Great Torrington. Originally the Market House housed the town Library, more recently it was an antiques emporium but now Polly is excited to be using the building as a studio and gallery space. |
 Upon conducting internet research, Polly was thrilled to find this image of the Market House taken in the 1950s by her Grandfather, the architectural photographer, Eric de Mare. The above image was sourced from the English Heritage National Monuments Archive (click on image for details). |
Introducing the next exhibition:
Paintings by Lil Tudor-Craig
"Painting is a way for me to explore, understand and celebrate the natural world of the British Isles.
My interest is in ecology or the relationship of living things to each other and to their habitat. Each painting shows a particular place at a particular time of year, with some of the creatures which would be found there at that time.
The pictures are conceived as if time could be stretched so that one could look at that place for a month all in one day. Some of the paintings are concerned with the beauty of often overlooked simple places such as reedbeds, brambles, nettles, field corners and thorn thickets with the incredible diversity of species that live there. Some paintings are of more complex long-established plant communities such as old meadows and their web of intricately dependant species. The paintings celebrate species of plants and animals that are still common, and are also an elegy for those that are passing into history. I use egg tempera, a paint made by mixing very pure pigments with egg yolk. Intense colours and fine detail are possible with this medium. The pictures are painted onto high quality plywood panels which are prepared using gesso to provide the ground for painting. Each picture takes around three months to complete".
Tel: 07813 068054 www.tudor-craig.co.uk email: lil@tudor-craig.co.uk
Paper Sculpture by Polly Verity
Polly Verity creates miniature wire and paper sculptures depicting extinct species, other-worldly and mythological creatures.
With a structure made of pure silver wire that describes the external contours like a delicate exoskeleton, fine paper covers this like a taut translucent skin. The outcome is a form that takes up volume and yet appears hardly there. White and diaphanous paper gently contrasts with the darker, underlying wireframe lines of the structure which appears as a line drawing describing threedimensional contours.
Ancient and timeless, drawn from myth or descriptions of creatures now extinct, these strange beasts emanate a sense of fragility and poignancy.
Often origami paper work is incorporated, tiny meticulous repeat folds slot together to form wings or the feathers of a creature. Sometimes forms stem from a flat sheet of paper with resulting shapes resembling naturalistic forms such as coral and fungi to other very different mathematical geometric repeated forms precisely folded without cuts. This paperwork is incorporated into the wire sculptures, seamlessly as though they grew there or were formed over millennia like strange crystal.
The works appeal to people's sense of wonder and the unknown. The stance and facial expression of each creature relays an anthropomorphic depth and strength of emotion which seems to particularly resonate and is accentuated by the idea of a creature trapped inside a glass prison which is at once beautiful and heart-rending.
The paper is acid-free and conservation grade and the glue is archival quality, the same materials as used in book conservation.
 Garlic Mustard, 2011 Lil Tudor-Craig © 18" x 24" (45.5 x 61cm), Egg Tempera on panel |
ECOLOGY INTO ART An exhibition of paintings by Lil Tudor-Craig and Paper Sculpture by Polly Verity at The Market House Great Torrington, Devon, EX38 8AB. August 21st – September 4th 2011, 11 - 6 daily. Lil and Polly will be at the Old Market House for the whole duration of the exhibition and look forward to welcoming you there. |
Paintings by Lil Tudor-Craig
"Painting is a way for me to explore, understand and celebrate the natural world of the British Isles.
My interest is in ecology or the relationship of living things to each other and to their habitat. Each painting shows a particular place at a particular time of year, with some of the creatures which would be found there at that time.
The pictures are conceived as if time could be stretched so that one could look at that place for a month all in one day. Some of the paintings are concerned with the beauty of often overlooked simple places such as reedbeds, brambles, nettles, field corners and thorn thickets with the incredible diversity of species that live there. Some paintings are of more complex long-established plant communities such as old meadows and their web of intricately dependant species. The paintings celebrate species of plants and animals that are still common, and are also an elegy for those that are passing into history. I use egg tempera, a paint made by mixing very pure pigments with egg yolk. Intense colours and fine detail are possible with this medium. The pictures are painted onto high quality plywood panels which are prepared using gesso to provide the ground for painting. Each picture takes around three months to complete".
Tel: 07813 068054 www.tudor-craig.co.uk email: lil@tudor-craig.co.uk
Paper Sculpture by Polly Verity
Polly Verity creates miniature wire and paper sculptures depicting extinct species, other-worldly and mythological creatures.
With a structure made of pure silver wire that describes the external contours like a delicate exoskeleton, fine paper covers this like a taut translucent skin. The outcome is a form that takes up volume and yet appears hardly there. White and diaphanous paper gently contrasts with the darker, underlying wireframe lines of the structure which appears as a line drawing describing threedimensional contours.
Ancient and timeless, drawn from myth or descriptions of creatures now extinct, these strange beasts emanate a sense of fragility and poignancy.
Often origami paper work is incorporated, tiny meticulous repeat folds slot together to form wings or the feathers of a creature. Sometimes forms stem from a flat sheet of paper with resulting shapes resembling naturalistic forms such as coral and fungi to other very different mathematical geometric repeated forms precisely folded without cuts. This paperwork is incorporated into the wire sculptures, seamlessly as though they grew there or were formed over millennia like strange crystal.
The works appeal to people's sense of wonder and the unknown. The stance and facial expression of each creature relays an anthropomorphic depth and strength of emotion which seems to particularly resonate and is accentuated by the idea of a creature trapped inside a glass prison which is at once beautiful and heart-rending.
The paper is acid-free and conservation grade and the glue is archival quality, the same materials as used in book conservation.