Received Wisdom Exhibition:

I headed to The Sunderland Museum And Winter Gardens to visit an exhibition titled ‘Received Wisdom’. This exhibition held some amazing artists work, artists who were known to be in their ‘later years’ as it was stated. Their work all portrayed moments throughout life and not only were they captivating to look at but they were also very educating.

I loved how there were many different aspects within the arts such as: paintings, sculpture, photography, printing and press. It is always intriguing to see how differently artists respond to one another and how each one of them hold their own special techniques not leaving one of them the same.

As an artist myself, recently I have focused a lot of my current work upon masks so due to this I was very attracted to one certain piece in particular. This was a piece sculptured by the artist Hew Locke which is known as Medusa. Medusa was created back in 2008 with a base of Plywood and MDF. Upon the base was a huge build up of materials made out of metals, plastics and textiles. The artwork was just filled with objects that all contributed to form this beautiful and unique piece. The more you would look at the work the more interesting it became, every second you spent analysing it you would discover new items.

Another two pieces that caught my eye due to being masked like are both by the artist John Stezaker, who is an artist that I remember researching whilst I was attending College. The artworks are both Collages produced in 2007, one called ‘Mask LXIVX’ and the other ‘Pair V’. Just like the rest of Stezaker’s art the two pieces are of studio portraits with a postcard layered over and linking in with their facial structures. I really love this style of art and it makes you look more into it to suggest what is going on, he also has such an amazing technique for the way he lines up the landscapes within the frame of the face.

The following names are the group of artists who were displaying their work at the Received Wisdom exhibition: John Sheehy, Kenneth Armitage, John Stezaker, Jo Spence, Nerys Johnson, Rose Wylie, David Madalla, John Newling, Nicholas Pope, Hew Locke, Mary Webb, Janet Nathan, Gillan Ayres, Amikan Toren, Rachel Howard, Lubaina Himid, Gareth Griffith and Hurvin Anderson.