2003
Past Perfect
Past Perfect bridged the two of the major contemporary art venues in the town. The cultural horizons of this place have been overshadowed by the famous Sherborne Abbey set by local artists in watercolour. The Past Perfect show brought an awesome, almost Luddite, purity to this heritage centre.
Gallery HOLT is a part of the prestigious independent Sherborne School hiding just behind the Abbey - the exhibition literally bridges the town, re-emerging in the equally stately surroundings of Sherborne House. Sherborne House was recently in use as a School too; it has now been developed by artists as a space for contemporary art and adopted by other locals who aim to restore the building that houses a mural by England's leading baroque artist, Sir James Thornhill.
Shrimpton and Bolas' installation in the exhibition explored our obsession with restoration by meticulously crafting an intervention that interferes with assumptions of authenticity and stasis. In a strange collection of objects which refer to the room in which they are placed it was difficult to tell which were authentic and which are the false fabrications of art.
Paul McGowan's sculptures evoked daily rituals, the acts we perform that help us to replace a sense of inevitable ending with the rhythm of life.
The witty videos of Sonya Hanney and Adam Dade present inexplicable performances in which the artists complicate the notion of seeing an event in its entirety. Despite their documentary form it is hard to work out exactly what has been going on. Sharing a view of the event takes us no nearer to the possibility of re-imagining the original and protracted incident.
Savage's work is cosy and loving but presented with a hard clarity. He investigates how we come to value objects, particularly garments. Items that we think of as part of ourselves: these can nevertheless be carelessly misplaced, or as Savage prefers stolen, they then become intimate with a new person.
Past Perfect offers a further enriching experience, brought to life by the works in the show, this is the promenade through real streets between venues. Even the substantial buildings, made of golden sandstone quarried nearby, appear in an accelerated state of flux. They shed their skins and acquire new facades. Whole sections of the small town slip smoothly from the moorings of time and are at once pray to the tempers of human agency – ravishing their structures and embellishing their functions. Visitors will particularly enjoy the chromatic shock of the Fishmarket chip shop and the weird steps of the post office leading to a blank.
Caroline de Lannoy
Andrew Stock
Andrew Stock is a former President of the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA) since 2004, and follows in the footsteps of the late Sir Peter Scott, the great conservationist and artist who encouraged Andrew in his painting career whilst still at school. Andrew is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.
