reCollecting exhibition at The Harley Gallery

About

6 April - 16 June 2019 | open daily, Monday – Saturday 10am – 5pm, Sunday 10am – 4pm
Harley Gallery 

An exciting body of new work by artist Sylvie Franquet.

Belgian artist Sylvie Franquet has drawn inspiration from the huge variety of objects collected by the Dukes of Portland and their families, in particular by their illustrious female members. These women collected for the excitement of the acquisition, but also to learn about the world and to understand more about natural history and the sciences that were coming into being. Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, the second Duchess of Portland, especially stands out to Sylvie.

Sylvie also collects, but her materials are found on walks, along seashores, in junk markets and on eBay, and with them she creates a world she can understand better.

Franquet is fascinated by attitudes to gender and nature, and by the similarities in those attitudes. As Bertold Brecht said: “What kind of times are this, when to speak about trees is almost a crime…because it implies silence about so many horrors.”

Franquet, who recognises the destruction humans have wrought on the world, seeks to re-engage with nature through her work. Collecting, sewing, re-collecting… the work in this show explores her relationship with nature, seeking to establish a place for her in it. It is an act of repair: repairing her – and our – relationship with nature. It is an act of re-membering, re-collecting. We despair. We hope. We despair. We hope… But in the end it’s hopeful.

A multimedia collage artist, a re-collector, Franquet’s fine art practice spans needlework, textile and rock sculpture, collage and sewn herbariums. Franquet combines classical imagery with a punk aesthetic and with research into Welbeck’s historic art collection.

Intrigued to find out more? Join Sylvie on Friday 5 April 2019 for a preview tour of her exhibition.