Artist: Jessica Cooper

Title: nasturtium patch

Medium: acrylic on canvas

Dinemsions: 76 x 71 cm

Press Release

Jessica Cooper and Jennie Hancox

Fixtures and Fittings

Paintings and Silver works

30 March – 2 June 2013

A layered location replete with human histories and memories, place has width as well as depth. It is about

connections, what surrounds it, what formed it, what happened there, what will happen there.

Lucy Lippard

Fixtures and Fittings, which opens on Easter weekend, will be the first

exhibition of the season for Kestle Barton. It will feature approximately

twenty new paintings by Jessica Cooper, and several small collections of

silver works from Jennie Hancox – a created in response to the themes

and scenes to be found at Kestle Barton. All the work will be for sale, as

well as some monochrome prints by Jessica Cooper made specifically for

the show. During the course of the exhibition, which runs until June, the

adjacent garden will wake up to reveal its splendid drifts of colour and

varieties of texture that add a harmonious counterpart to the artwork on

show.

Two artists of very different mediums both delight in the details of the

place that Kestle Barton has become since the restoration of this ancient

Cornish farmstead was completed in 2010. Fixtures and Fittings focuses

on the reconstructive materials, the architecture and the grounds of

Kestle Barton, as told through paintings by Jessica Cooper and silver

works by Jennie Hancox. Each artist has spent time in the domestic

spaces of the converted barns that now serve as holiday apartments; the

working ‘unseen’ places used by staff; the fields and footpaths that

surround the structures and the beautiful areas enjoyed by the visitors –

namely the exhibition space and the adjacent garden open to the public

from Easter – November.

Jessica Cooper is a native to Cornwall, based in West Penwith, she is an active member of the Newlyn Society of

Artists. Her painting practice is heavily informed by her daily drawings in her sketchbooks that record the objects

and elements that surround her in life and bring meaning to her paintings. This new collection is in keeping with

the elegant, minimal style that Cooper is known for. Humour and painterly sophistication are saturated into

seemingly sparse compositions that rely on precise placement of line and colour for their strong impact. Familiar

motifs from her repertoire reappear here through her exploration of Kestle Barton – an interest in both the interior

and exterior of these unique house structures: chairs, kitchen utensils, mugs and teapots, metal rooftops and

hidden corners. The gardens of Kestle Barton have also proved an irresistible subject, bringing bright colours and

playful patterns into the collection.

Silver works by Jennie Hancox is also featured in Fixtures and Fittings, bringing together two distinct mediums in

one exhibition. For both artists the commitment to the materiality of their medium is hugely important and echoes

with their shared interest in the materials used in the restoration. Resisting the term ‘jewellery’, Hancox creates

‘wearable sculpture’ in silver that considers the sculptural object in relation to movement and the human form. Her

collections are inspired by the natural environment, with themes developing through stages of sketchbook

drawings, three dimensional models and finally the finished objects in silver. Also based in West Penwith, Hancox

was particularly interested in the rooftops and the natural materials used at Kestle Barton as a starting point for her

new collections.

The insight and artistic vision that both Jessica Cooper and Jennie Hancox offer in their work invites visitors this

Spring to look closely themselves at the beautiful surroundings and the way in which the space has been made.

Kestle Barton is open 30 March – 2 November 2013. 10:30am – 5pm Tuesday through Sunday, as well as Bank

Holiday Mondays and by appointment. We offer ample parking, light refreshments and free admission.

High resolution images available upon request

Kestle Barton

Manaccan

Helston

Cornwall TR12 6HU

01326 231 811

info@kestlebarton.co.uk

www.kestlebarton.co.uk