IRON MAIDENS Exhibition
Exhibiting: Sarah Clover (USA) Felicia Glidden (USA) Cynthia Handel (USA) Kate Hobby (UK) Justine Johnson (UK) Coral Lambert (UK/USA) Alison Lochhead (UK) Carrie Phoenix (UK) Tamsie Ringler (USA) Theresa Smith (USA) Julie Ward (USA) Simone Bizzell-Browning (UK) “Liquid iron forms the core of the earth and courses through our bodies in the form of haemoglobin. It is the stuff of legends all over the world and its development into useable material has transformed our culture and environment, and fine artists, as the keepers of cultural myths, have been attracted to the material over the centuries. In the last fifteen years cast iron has become part of the contemporary sculptural repertoire and Wales is becoming a European centre of excellence in this material” (Robert Harding, Inheritors of the Vulcan Tradition. Planet 2006) The resurgence of cast iron as a sculptural medium in Wales began in 1994 with the building of a small portable furnace by two USA artists, Charles hook and Deborah la Grasse for Harvey Hood at Berllanderi Sculpture Workshop. A continuing interchange between iron sculptors across the Atlantic was initiated by Coral Lambert who still organises the US/USA Cast Iron Symposia, alternating between the two countries each year. Iron Maidens is an exhibition of sculpture and drawings by British and American female sculptors who work in cast iron. They have all variously worked alongside each other in Butley Mills Studios, Suffolk; The Museum of Steel Sculpture, Ironbridge; Salem Art Works, New York State; Franconia Sculpture Park, Minnesota; Sloss Furnaces, Alabama; Caerau Metals, Brecon; West Wales College of the Arts, Carmarthen and Berllanderi, Raglan. Iron Maidens is one of the first of several exhibitions shown as a precursor to the International Contemporary Cast Iron Art Conference in Kidwelly, Wales in 2010; where it will have a special showing.