ART ON THE BEACH -WATERBEACH BARRACKS TURNS CREATIVE
Eve Waldron’s spectacular piece from re-cycled materials
It is a surprise to see the stark setting of a once busy military base metamorphosed into a vast art gallery.
Where once aeroplanes manoeuvred on the uneven ground and the large flanks of the runway filled with the junk of jeeps, now houses a gallery of remarkable art, range in two spacious columns around the deserted runway.
On the Beach is a remarkable achievement. Last night a brilliant jazz band, Transposition, played before a hall crowded with manic twenty foot high cats (no I was not hallucinating) fashioned boldly by Gideon Pain an artist who had let himself run riot with a theme of feline fantasy, fit to frighten the keenest cat lover. Quiet and self effacing it was not. Exuberant it certainly is. Gideon is the Prime Mover of this magnificent event - his creativity has led to this virtual explosion of talent .
Gorgeous landscape by the versatile Sarah Betts (see below)
In another bay the brilliant portraitist Sarah Betts displayed her traditional work “ It may have gone out of fashion now” she explained ’ But I love painting people as they are”. I arrived just as a collector with a canny eye for art snaffled up her too-modestly priced figure drawings “The paintings are a little more expensive” she confessed. By which she meant just over £100. Catch one before you miss a superb artist at her most reasonable.
Sarah Betts amazing portraiture
Outstanding was most decidedly Eve Waldron’s superb and vast wall relief, using bio-based recycled materials brilliantly sourced from - how apposite - the HQ for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in the recently opened Old Telephone Exchange in Cambridge for which also did the Interior Design. For a massive work of impressive dimensions, this is paradoxically a subtle piece of art. Price undisclosed it fitted brilliantly into a field of superb talent. This. piece contains plywood, hemp board, walnut,.bamboo, oak , compressed paper board and strawboard. The low carbon energy efficient project aims to show what is truly possible with simply left over bits and bobs, material headed otherwise for the landfill. Eve has worked in what she calls “biophilic shapes to mimic nature” and it’s all designed to help those workers concentrate
Everywhere there was a niche operator with an array of brilliant wares. Sheena Harris’s ceramics with their warm hues and interesting finishes caught my eye. As did the superlative drawings of Peter Sutton redolent of Edward Hopper with his bleak lighting and masterly technique.
The Cambridge Critique looks forward to another session in this wonderful space. What a brilliant addition to the Arts scene, with all the razzmatazz of a West End installation happening and packed with inspirational work.
