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25
March 2007 - 31 March 2007
Liverpool and Cologne by Natalie Bennett.
Bennett’s work is based on personal experience and human
relationships but conveyed in a raw art style to convey emotions
and a sense of immediacy. The work now displayed in the city it
was developed in, having previously been shown in Cologne, is
now housed in a personal setting and takes on another dimension.
Bennett a recent graduate from Liverpool Hope University was recently
exhibited in the Eight Days a Week programme in Cologne, Germany.
She worked on a body of work for this project. The work for this
exhibition is the work she chose to exclude from the exhibition
in Germany. The work is titled from Liverpool to Cologne as the
work was created in Liverpool and originally destined for Cologne,
due to being limited with space and the expense of shipping work
to Germany the work has taken a journey from selection to de-selection
(www.eightdaysaweek.org.uk)

Review
of Liverpool and Cologne by Natalie Bennett at Loft Space Programme
(25 March 2007 - 31 March 2007), Curated by Jo Derbyshire.
Written by Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney.
Photographs © Tony Knox 2007.
30 March 2007.

The
‘Liverpool and Cologne’ Exhibition by Natalie Bennett,
is part of the series of on-giong projects at the Loft Space Programme,
curated by Derbyshire.
Bennett
presented a collection of her former and more recent art developed
from the previous platform with Eight Days a Week, a Liverpool
and Cologne Exchange Programme.
The
art was shown in different locations throughout the house from
the main entrance area and leading up to the first floor towards
the Loft Space. As art and exhibitions have evolved from the January
2007 with the onset of the Loft Space Programme, Derbyshire has
adapted the concepts of art in the urban space and art from previous
exhibitions has migrated through the residential space. A critique
of how urban space is itself transforms by daily living comparable
to how art transcends by experience, intervention and history.
Bennett’s
art is in a naïve abstract style and references the awkward
relationship to the formal qualities of painting. For example,
the academic precepts of perspective are removed to a reductive
and simplified approach, resulting in a persuasive and appealing,
but awkward and refreshing vision. Her work has strong use of
unrefined colours, layers of paint often scratched to allay the
palette underneath. The simplicity, rather than the subtlety,
are the strength in her work. Some of her work is combination
of found objects introduced to the two dimensional surface of
the canvas and modified through layers of paint. Others are actual
pieces of found objects, cardboard, etc., which become the spatial
surface to create on. She combines text, phrases and simplified
forms, shapes and annotations through her inscribed mark making.
Abstract
art, particularly that of a naïve quality, is one of those
art forms that any can assume to do, but the dilemma is, it is
creative approach that someone is either able to do very well
or immensely badly. Those practitioners who paint in a naïve
art form tend to be those who have an innate eye and ability to
not only one art form, but have a broader understanding and capacity
to art overall. This art form is one the artist chooses to do
to imbue the intrinsic qualities abstract art conveys. Bennett
does so with skill and insight. Her art is thought provoking and
entices the viewer to study the forms and layers. These naïve
abstractions have
Bennett
is a recognised young upcoming artist. She has already been awarded
an accreditation through Liverpool Hope University and currently
on a scholarship programme for her Masters in Creative Practice.
Further
information on the upcoming projects at the Loft Space, contact
Jo Derbyshire (Curator of Loft Space Project) on aprilskies1204@aol.com
or 07946353251. Viewing is by appointment (www.joderbyshire.co.uk).
01
April 2007 – 07 April 2007
Escape from Genesis (The Canon of theHuman Body, Society and Culture)
by Lucia Andrea Sweeney. Extended to
14 April 2007.
15
April 2007 - 21 April 2007
From New York to Liverpool and Back Again (Femmes du Futur) by
Kofi Fosu Forson with collaborations from Dawn Cherie, Carolyn
Day and Nadja Hoyer-Booth.
22
April 2007 - 28 April 2007
Overview of Loft Space: Salon (on-line publication and exhibition).