Portfolio

Stack, 2020

Commission/Exhibition, 2020 Throughout 2016-18 Philippa Lawrence studied tree stumps, stacks of logs and cut wood in Hestercombe’s grounds, making two site responsive works Shift & Stasis, transforming fire-wood and tree stumps through the process of French polishing..

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My coaching sessions with Pip have been hugely valuable, supporting me to find ways forward in areas where I’ve felt blocked or uncertain. She has the rare ability to not only listen attentively, but also to recognise the words that carry the real meaning in my ramblings. Pip has helped me navigate the seeming chaos…

OF BRISTOL

2020 , PROJECT A 6-week exhibition programme of projects and events from visual artists, projects, providers, programmers and community engagement initiatives at the former department store and historic site – Gardiner Haskins.

Trace

2018 , COMMISSION/EXHIBITION Trace is a study of Hestercombe’s tree stumps as sculptural enamelled elements. The work highlights variety within nature’s forms, absence, successive generations of intervention and design that shaped the gardens at Hestercombe.

Bonsai, Bound

2018 , STUDIO Nature crafted and re-crafted. Value diminished through death, raised again through re-attention and the binding of limbs in embroidery thread.

A Space Between

2017 , EXHIBITION Nature’s Alchemy, featuring twelve artists who use materials such as mud, blood and ash to explore patterns and symbolism found within nature, the exhibition showcase works and artists whose use of natural materials evoke cycles of life and death.

Breathing Space

2019 , STUDIO The site of the page, the site of activity and the relationship of both to the body.

Out of Site

2018, STUDIO Spike Island Open Studios is a continuing exploration of studio and what it means. Its 1st iteration was a simple work of a peephole in the breeze-block wall of a closed studio, tested at Spike Island’s Open Studios in 2018.

Being Here & Being There

2018, PUBLICATION An Artist Book, an illustrated essay drawn from extensive site research and consideration of concepts relating to the future of Hestercombe House, questions raised during a 3-year research period that culminated in the exhibition Materiality: Provisional States with Sarah Bennett and Megan Claver, November 2018 – February 2019.

Shift

2018 , EXHIBITION A partner work to Stasis in which raw wood was collected from Hestercombe’s grounds and transformed through the repetitive act of sanding and French polishing.

Bound V-57

2010 , COMMISSION Nature Unframed, Morton Arboretum, Illinois, Chicago

The Topography of Cloth

2018 , STUDIO One in a series of photographic studies of cloth and landscape within its folds.

Stasis

2018 , PROJECT For Shift and Stasis, I learnt to French Polish, a technique associated with fine wooden furniture. The aim was to bring life to raw, cut wood, transforming it through the sanding, smoothing and preparing of the rough sawn ends, and the subsequent application of many fine layers of French polish.

Angles of Incidence

2014 , COMMISSION A collaboration with Singaporean architect Randy Chan, supported by the British Council. A site-responsive work designed to connect two very different tracts of land, the reclaimed, public and widely accessed Botanic Garden of Singapore & ancient, private land at Inner Temple, London.

The Fabric of Making

2012 , PROJECT/COMMISSION 21m bolt of woollen cloth and poem. Working with history, craft, language and place for the international site-responsive Textile Exhibition Cloth & Memory {2} at Salts Mill conceived and curated by Professor Lesley Millar.

Carpet Bed

2012, PROJECT/COMMISSION A work made for Waddeson Manor, (National Trust), Aylesbury. 20,000 alpine plants grown at Kernock nurseries and 6 months later laid out in just one day.

Bound, Croft

2009-10, COMMISSION/EXHIBITIONNational Trust, Croft Castle. Bound, Croft framed the approach to Croft Castle as part of the Tell it to the Trees project commissioned by Meadow Arts.

Darning the Land

2011, COMMISSION Maurice Lea Park lies within the parish of Church Gresley in Swadlincote, and before its renovation in 1930 had served as common land. Here coal was publicly accessible to be picked during pit strikes in the late C19th. Before its recreation as a public park in 1930, it was deeply scarred. The work attempts to reference its history, and connect people to the past when the land supported people on a fundamental level, through the metaphor of darning.

Barcode FB: 814

2011 , COMMISSION Meadow Arts Commission for Forestry Commission land at Mortimor Forest near Ludlow

Fallen Star

2006, PROJECT/EXHIBITION Suspended 7.5k white gold gilded light bulbs, granite and amp wire, Videy, Iceland. A commissioned site-responsive work for the International Artist led exchange and exhibition programme Sense in Place.