Kate Fowle on the group exhibition from artists Ian Chamberlain, Katherine Jones, and Tim Hammick
A sanctuary is defined as a place of refuge, providing shelter and safety, and this is exactly how I felt ascending the stairs of the Glasgow Print Studios, accepting the glass of red wine handed to me, and entering the gallery that housed this exhibition. Stepping inside the partly open-plan space, from which the works of Ian Chamberlain, Katherine Jones, and Tim Hammick flowed, I was reminded of a home as I wandered between the rooms.
After a brief introduction on the theme of sanctuary, each artist walked us through their sections of the exhibition, expertly curated with transitions between the artists’ works.
Katherine Jones began. She explained how she works from throwaway sketches with no expectations, only developing them if she feels led. Her sanctuary is a place of comfort to create without obligation which she reflects in her collagraph practice (a print process involving a textured ink plate and a press) on discarded picture-framing card. ‘List’ was a piece that left a particularly lasting impression – an array of personal objects laid on a table. She draws from life and memory, suggesting that sometimes sanctuary can only be remembered or imagined. Memories are a recurring theme throughout her work, using pansies and summer imagery reflecting time, seasons and the way feelings of safety ebb and flow from our lives as the years cycle, brought on by smells, tastes and sounds that echoes through the visual imagery of her work.
Ian Chamberlain, then, guided us to his section. His work has a homely feel too with a lot of it made during lockdown. Inspired by technological advancements, he finds solace in repetitive forms, creating scratchy images of shelters with heavy mark making, and monochrome ink. Chamberlain’s early interests in “the expanded fields of drawing and what it can achieve,” forced him to push the boundaries of his pencil drawings when he lacked large print facilities. Despite the dystopian tone of his current work, stemming from his interest in science, I found myself nostalgic for the tree branch dens (‘Safe Place’ series) scattered among industrial forms in this exhibition. I recalled the childish pride of creating a shelter in the woods, and my false sense of protection as my sister and I clambered inside. We didn’t care that a strong wind would knock our home down and that rain would pour straight through the gaps. This memory that Chamberlain’s work stirred in me reminded me of Jones’ exploration of whether sanctuary can ever really be achieved, or if it is an illusion.
Tom Hammick’s section of the exhibition was a fresh bombardment of colour. Hammick declared that Earth is his sanctuary, and that his large scale, wood-cut prints are his way of “sticking two fingers up at people like Trump” who only look at nature and beauty “as a commodity.” Wood cut is the earliest form of printmaking, and Hammick’s practice seemed an attempt to rediscover his sanctuary in its purest form. The centre piece of his collection of work are two paintings titled ‘Garden in a Time of Loss I and II’. A pair of large, luminous and deeply intricate wood-cut prints “took a long time to make,” he stated – which I thought was poignant as he explained to us that they depict him and his partner attempting to resow the earth. Rediscovering your sanctuary and repairing our Earth in an era of unrest takes time.
This exhibition taught me that sanctuary is something that exists through objects, places, smells and seasons, but also something to be built. Whether it is constructed in our imagination as suggested by Katherine Jones or physically built like Ian Chamberlain’s structures, and Tom Hammick’s attempts to fix his places of sanctuary. These artists reassured me that we all have sanctuaries, in homes, in our minds, in nature, in the things we surround ourselves with, and they are there to stay in an ever-changing world. We can all find refuge somewhere.
‘Garden in a Time of Loss’, Tom Hammick, 2023, photo by Kate Fowle