Every Step
A retrospective of collaborative works by a visual artist and composer is coming to the Courtyard Gallery at The Collection Museum.
Every step (a stride over something not said) explores the work of Lincolnshire-based Linda Ingham and David Power, combining visual art and music.
The selected work is informed by human relationships to landscape and place, often referencing memory and the passage of time and increasingly ecology and natural history.
Joint Project
The pair have been working together since 2008: “Our first joint project was installing music and a series of ethereal pieces into the architecture of the Grimsby Minster,” says Linda, “and we’ve just taken things from there. As composer and artist, we both have separate practices, but it’s really interesting to see the turns one’s work can make when collaboration, and often specific sites, are involved.”
Their largest-scale collaboration has been the Far & Near project, which was supported with funds from the Arts Council England, and which they will bring to their Lincoln show.
“The starting-point was Linda’s observations of secular memorials in the landscape” says David, who has provided music for a film that makes up part of the installation, which also includes a bespoke green oak memorial bench, series of paintings, a commemorative quilt, and opportunity for visitors to interact with the work. “From Grimsby, the piece has toured to Leeds and other places, where it has been well-received, and we’ve been really touched by the memorials contributed by the audience.”
Far & Near currently includes around 300 memorial contributions, which are attached to the bench along with donated objects from those wishing to remember a loved-one, and The Collection’s visitors are invited to take part.
Amongst other works, the exhibition also includes a series of paintings and a film with music which “observes the nature of what is, and is not seen as people walk and run along the Lincolnshire coastline; there’s an amazing amount of flora and fauna with herbal and folk histories I have been interested to study,” remarks Linda; and a series of images drawn from the Hallgarth Collection at the North East Lincolnshire archive, derived from photographs of unknown women.
“In the 1960s and ‘70, Hallgarth cycled around Lincolnshire seeking photographs from which he built an archive; the only problem is, none of them were catalogued, so the whole collection is a bit of a mystery,” says Linda, who has re-presented the selected images by working into them with paint.
Success
Both Linda and David have had national and international success. Most recently, David’s work has toured the country as part of the launch for the Delta Saxophone Quartet CD and project Bowie, Berlin and Beyond, which includes two of his compositions, and he has also worked with composer Errolyn Wallen and others on a series of new pieces inspired by the work of Claude Debussy, performed by James Willshire.
Linda is a selected artist included in the online platform, Contemporary British Painting. During 20018 her work toured museums and galleries in China and most recently was shown at Poland’s National Gallery in Gdansk as part of the Priseman Seabrook Collection.
She has work in many public collections, including the East Contemporary at Suffolk University, the Rugby Art Gallery & Museum Collection of Contemporary Art, Madison Museum of Fine Art, Ohio USA and Jiangsu Arts and Craft Museum, China. As a teacher, Linda is a regular visiting artist at Leeds University School of Design, and part of the programme at The Steel Rooms, Brigg.
Every step (a stride over something not said) runs in the Courtyard Gallery from 28 September until 10 November 2019. Admission is free.
For more on The Collection Museum, visit www.thecollectionmuseum.com