Disa Allsopp and Claire Curneen

The figure in Silver, Bronze and Clay

6 November - 6 January 2004

A leading jewellery artist, Disa Allsopp has been making figurative jewellery for over 20 years selling to collectors worldwide. After graduating from Middlesex University in 1981 Disa set up her workshop in Barbados. In 1993 Disa completed a Post Graduate course at the Edinburgh College of Art and Design under Dorothy Hogg, MBE.

The curator of flow gallery, Yvonna Demczynska, has encouraged Disa to consider increasing the scale of the figures featuring in so much of Disa's jewellery and making them stand on their own. In order to accept this challenge Disa Allsopp has spent the last two years concentrating on the show, observing the moving figure and drawing it in a variety of locations including the Royal Ballet studios.  Disa has created 11 sculptures for the show perched on metal plinths made in the form of different geometric shapes.

"This exhibition has been a great challenge for me as I normally work on a much smaller scale. The figures range from approximately 6cm to 30 cm. They are made of sterling silver, and bronze with copper bases. Each figure represents movement and form in some way.

They are all going to or coming from somewhere. The finishes are all different varying from oxidisation to bleaching and hammering and scratching on the silver figures and verdigris on the bronze pieces.

The figures have an ancient feel moving through time and space. The animals are just an added interest as I love animals and feel they are just as important as the figures."

Claire Curneen's work with the figure is grounded in the explorations of the human condition, focusing of the aspect of the religious and the ceremonial. With semi autobiographical references, the figure serves as a vessel for the physical and spiritual being.

Claire's figures are made from small porcelain pieces rolled in her hands and joined together from the feet upwards. The hands of the figures are usually exaggerated in proportion to the rest of the body enabling the pieces to hold more power and strength. Claire's Catholic upbringing is reflected in her fascination with the Catholic imagery and narrative in her new work, particularly of the martyred saints. Studies of the figure of St Sebastian, the martyr shot with arrows, often feature in her work.. The finishes are all different varying from oxidisation to bleaching and hammering and scratching on the silver figures and verdigris on the bronze pieces.

Some of the figures will be glazed and decorated with transfers of blue flowers. Claire wanted to use flowers, which are short lived and bloom only once to show the fragility and ephemeral nature of human life.

"When I am making, it is like drawing in clay". Her "sketches in clay" talk about universal subjects -life, death, pain and joy.  A fascination with the melancholy and the beauty of things that are sad, gives Claire's figures the emotional enigmatic power.

melancholy and the beauty of things that are sad, gives Claire's figures