Tate St.Ives

Whilst in Cornwall, I visited St. Ives and the Tate Gallery. I loved the focus on local and art history within the area. I documented my two favourite pieces in my sketchbook, by Margaret Mellis and Ro Robertson.

Below is Margaret Mellis' work, 'Number Thirty Five', 1983, a wall sculptural that was made from driftwood along the beach. To best describe why I love this, sculptures like this I see as evolved paintings on canvas. It's as if the elements have come to life in abstract, three-dimensional forms, representing the seaside landscape as experienced from a human perspective.

Moving to St. Ives in 1939, Mellis was a constructivist, but seemingly a Modernist in the latter half of her life. She worked with driftwood in the last 20 years of her life, gathering found materials from the shoreline and adding them into her home collection.

Personal Thoughts and Take-away

• Abstract representation of landscape

• Feels memorialistic, as if assembling a structure to create a memory, or honour a place

• Physical interpretation of a landscape painting

• Uses found, local objects to create a collage artwork. I feel more connected to this piece, than compared to a traditional landscape painting of the same shoreline; owed to her sensory choices of material, literal signifiers, and the raw aesthetic. All of this can be down to her Modernist practices.

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"A rejection of history and conservative values (such as realistic depiction of subjects); innovation and experimentation with form (the shapes, colours and lines that make up the work) with a tendency to abstraction; and an emphasis on materials, techniques and processes."

Tate, 'Modernism' (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism)

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My second favourite piece was Ro Robertson's 'Interlude'. Cor-ten steel in marine paint and found nylon rope. The piece is a response to the tidal zone of Porthmeor Beach and the changing shoreline between the headlands of the Island and Carrick Du. Interestingly, she has appraoched the landscape through the lens of LGBTQ+ experience, saying “We are part of a diverse, natural world in constant flux where boundaries aren’t binary and rigid but rather flow in constant harmony”. (Robertson, 2024)

I love their idea of adding layers of personal experience when imagining the landscape, as I feel this adds value and soul to the artwork. You also see the world around you in a different light, and can learn something from it.

In terms of the artwork, I particularly love Robertson’s use of flat forms that are cut to suggest fluidity, and flow into one another effortlessly, directly reflecting the crashing sea waves. I love the hints of colour, painted with blue colours of the sea, and pink suggestive of a dawning sky. This looks better than if they were painted solid, as it adds textural values, and similar to Mellis, exposes the raw material, and creates a collage aesthetic. They aren’t trying to hide the material, wanting to show a rawness that reminds me of old ships in a dockyard, and the breezing scent of seaweed. The structure suggests circular motion, as if matter revolving around an energy source. It also displays its weathering from rain as it is rusted, again, a visual reminder of where it is from, and suggesting Robertson’s artistic processes and choices.

Personal Thoughts and Take-away

• Bring textural elements into my works. Work with the raw material, and explore collage, through varying materials

• Use sensory and emotional connections as forefront to explore landscape, as this is what makes you passionate about it!

• Explore sculpture more as a medium through materials other than ceramics

My Sketchbook - two favourite Tate Artworks

My Sketchbook - Tate visit

Other pieces I loved include a large work by David Hockney. I enjoyed his choice to visually show dimension by painting the tiles. But also his fresh colour palette of fresh leaves (teal green), and candyland (bright pink). Feels reflective of the location in his title ‘Man in Shower in Beverly Hills’, 1964.

Also, ‘On Reflection’ by Patrick Hughes, 1975-78. A minimalist but effective method of conveying dimension and the calmness of the sea. This piece is owed to the grand scale of the work (122cm x 243cm).