Malcolm Martin & Gaynor Dowling
biography |
portfolio | artists listing
MALCOLM MARTIN
b. 1959
GAYNOR DOWLING
b. 1965
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, UK
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, UK
WoodTurning Center, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2008 Turned & Sculptured Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005-08 Collect, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
2007 Shy Boy, She Devil and Isis: The Art of Conceptual Craft, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, MA
Craft Council Showcase, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
2006 Solo Exhibition, Medici Gallery, London, England
2005 Between the Lines, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
Solo Exhibition, Flow, London, England
2004 Gallerie Handwerk, Munich, Germany
Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia, PA
Turned Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Out There, Craft Outside Crafts Council Gallery, London, UK
Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
Solo Exhibition, Plateaux Gallery, London, UK
Solo Exhibition, Rodger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2002 THINKING BIG: 21st Century British Sculpture, Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
Venice, Italy
Wood World, Museum of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland
Galerie Michael, Milan, Italy
New Work, Solo Exhibition, Beaux Arts, Bath, France
Intelligent Objects, Solo Exhibition, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London, UK
2001 New Objects, Solo Exhibition, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London, UK
The Unexpected, Sotheby's New York, NY
2000 Carlin Gallery, Paris, France
1999 25 years, Crafts Council at the V & A Contemporary Decorative Arts, Sotheby's,
London, UK
Solo Exhibition, open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
1998 Show case, Solo Exhibition, Crafts Council Shop at the V& A, Medici Gallery,
London, UK
Spirit of the Times, Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2002 "Thinking Big: concepts for 21st century British Sculpture", catalogue published by
Sculpture at Goodwood
2002 The Art of Prior’s Court School, Ann Elliot, published by the Bohun Gallery
2001 Profile, "Malcolm Martin & Gaynor Dowling", Gardens Illustrated, Feb. 2001, pp. 15-17
2000 "Malcolm Martin et Gaynor Dowling", by Suzanne Trocme, Architectural Digest, Paris,
June, p32
1999 Style Brut, by F. Morrelec, S. Guibourge & A. Desgrippes, Flammarion, Paris
1999 "The Eye of the Beholder", by Malcolm Martin, Crafts, no 159, May/June
1998 "Spirit of the Times", catalogue published by the Bowes Museum, County Durham
ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
Our work is metaphor, the landscape as a body, the body as landscape, experienced through the interplay of sight and touch. Lip and belly of the vessel, but also the trunk and limbs of the tree. One thing flows into another. The sea rises to become the land, stretched and folded by titanic forces.
Drawing on the block, the bounding contour. Links drawn from the wood with the most basic of handtools, drawing the movement of sea, of sand, or of silk. Oak and lime transformed to shine with white light, or burnt dark by fire.
We have been working together as sculptors for the past nine years, based in the Cotswold Valleys. Our work is carving, mainly in oak and lime. We work collaboratively across a range of scales from the hand-held to sculpture for the landscape, working in series, each family of pieces being explored through a range of variations and scales, with new series evolving from current work. Central to our sculpture is the tension between form and surface, using gouges to draw in shallow relief that articulates the fall of light across forms that explore the boundary between two and three dimensions.
The work is hand carved using axe and gouges. We use English oak for its strong assertive grain, and lime-wood by contrast for the very controlled carving its blandness allows. The pieces are then transformed by techniques such as scorching, liming and coloration to create objects that are open in their meaning and in relationship to their material.
b. 1959
GAYNOR DOWLING
b. 1965
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK
Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, UK
Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, UK
WoodTurning Center, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2008 Turned & Sculptured Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2005-08 Collect, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
2007 Shy Boy, She Devil and Isis: The Art of Conceptual Craft, Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, MA
Craft Council Showcase, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
2006 Solo Exhibition, Medici Gallery, London, England
2005 Between the Lines, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh
Solo Exhibition, Flow, London, England
2004 Gallerie Handwerk, Munich, Germany
Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia, PA
Turned Wood, del Mano Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Out There, Craft Outside Crafts Council Gallery, London, UK
Sculpture, Objects, Functional Art Exposition, Chicago, IL
Solo Exhibition, Plateaux Gallery, London, UK
Solo Exhibition, Rodger Billcliffe Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland
2002 THINKING BIG: 21st Century British Sculpture, Peggy Guggenheim Collection,
Venice, Italy
Wood World, Museum of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland
Galerie Michael, Milan, Italy
New Work, Solo Exhibition, Beaux Arts, Bath, France
Intelligent Objects, Solo Exhibition, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London, UK
2001 New Objects, Solo Exhibition, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London, UK
The Unexpected, Sotheby's New York, NY
2000 Carlin Gallery, Paris, France
1999 25 years, Crafts Council at the V & A Contemporary Decorative Arts, Sotheby's,
London, UK
Solo Exhibition, open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
1998 Show case, Solo Exhibition, Crafts Council Shop at the V& A, Medici Gallery,
London, UK
Spirit of the Times, Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2002 "Thinking Big: concepts for 21st century British Sculpture", catalogue published by
Sculpture at Goodwood
2002 The Art of Prior’s Court School, Ann Elliot, published by the Bohun Gallery
2001 Profile, "Malcolm Martin & Gaynor Dowling", Gardens Illustrated, Feb. 2001, pp. 15-17
2000 "Malcolm Martin et Gaynor Dowling", by Suzanne Trocme, Architectural Digest, Paris,
June, p32
1999 Style Brut, by F. Morrelec, S. Guibourge & A. Desgrippes, Flammarion, Paris
1999 "The Eye of the Beholder", by Malcolm Martin, Crafts, no 159, May/June
1998 "Spirit of the Times", catalogue published by the Bowes Museum, County Durham
ARTISTS’ STATEMENT
Our work is metaphor, the landscape as a body, the body as landscape, experienced through the interplay of sight and touch. Lip and belly of the vessel, but also the trunk and limbs of the tree. One thing flows into another. The sea rises to become the land, stretched and folded by titanic forces.
Drawing on the block, the bounding contour. Links drawn from the wood with the most basic of handtools, drawing the movement of sea, of sand, or of silk. Oak and lime transformed to shine with white light, or burnt dark by fire.
We have been working together as sculptors for the past nine years, based in the Cotswold Valleys. Our work is carving, mainly in oak and lime. We work collaboratively across a range of scales from the hand-held to sculpture for the landscape, working in series, each family of pieces being explored through a range of variations and scales, with new series evolving from current work. Central to our sculpture is the tension between form and surface, using gouges to draw in shallow relief that articulates the fall of light across forms that explore the boundary between two and three dimensions.
The work is hand carved using axe and gouges. We use English oak for its strong assertive grain, and lime-wood by contrast for the very controlled carving its blandness allows. The pieces are then transformed by techniques such as scorching, liming and coloration to create objects that are open in their meaning and in relationship to their material.