News
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Artweeks at the O3 Gallery
The O3 Gallery and top city venues Malmaison, The Living Room, La Tasca, and Café 1071 are offering up their walls to the county’s finest up-and-coming artists during the Artweeks festival (7th-30th May). The O3 Gallery will also house artwork by this year’s Mary Moser prize winner, Wendy Newhofer and displayed in the Oxford Castle Garden will be the work of local sculptors Christopher Townsend and Andrew Thompson, presented in association with the Turrill Sculpture Garden.
Following a competition for local students, the O3 Gallery is proud to present nine early career artists who work in a wide range of media and styles. Competition entries were judged at the end of March by a team of judges including two student representatives, Artweeks Director - Esther Browning and O3 Gallery Manager - Helen Statham.
Helen Statham says “Many students would love to take part in the Artweeks festival but struggle to secure a venue due to shared accommodation and/or the high cost of hiring a commercial venue. Through this project not only are we providing the students with a space to exhibit, but we are also guiding them through the process and giving them invaluable commercial experience of liaising with venues and pricing their work etc. It really is a wonderful opportunity!”
Showing photography and mixed media work in the gallery itself will be Elizabeth Brannan-Williams, Alex Hackett, Arthur Laidlaw, Bethany Naylor and Claire Williams. Vibrant oil paintings by Neil Butterfield will be housed by La Tasca and the witty ink drawings of Dar Al Naim Mubarak can be found in The Living Room. The Malmaison Hotel will present Janet Cross’ stylish ceramic pieces and Veronica Cordova’s simple yet haunting letter press drawings can be seen in Café 1071.
Wendy Newhofer will showcase a series of expressive glass artwork in the O3 Gallery. A combination of glass and metal in the form of precious leaf and wire enables Wendy to draw within the glass and create a palette of subtle colours when the glass is fired. There is a magical alchemy to this process which can be unpredictable but gives each piece its individual character.
Working in collaboration with the Turrill Sculpture Garden at Summertown Library, the O3 Gallery presents a series of large scale metal sculptures by Christopher Townsend and Andrew Thompson. Townsend’s ten foot lilies stand magnificently above the foliage in the Oxford Castle Garden while Thompson’s metal figures loiter at the front of the O3 Gallery as if surveying the activities of Castle Street Square.
For more information about the O3 Gallery, visit their website.
