Showtime at The Circus:
Bridget Moore RBA NEAC RWS - Steven Hubbard - Claire Loder
paintings - constructions - ceramics
Bridget Moore shows edgy paintings inspired by the circus and performance. Steven Hubbard shows equisite marquetry constructions with hidden panels and paintings. Claire Loder’s work explores ideas of Claire Loder shows ceramic heads exploring memory, contemplation and melancholy through the medium of clay, inspiring humour and absurdity.
This exhibition delivers every bit of emotion to be had from the buzz of the circus coming to town – from the nostalgic excitement of our childhood memories to the anticipation of the stage once set and its sometimes sinister characters. Roll up, roll up – it’s showtime!
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Just off Bath’s famous Georgian ‘Circus’ designed by John Wood the Elder, David Simon Contemporary is an appropriate setting for this aptly named exhibition of paintings, marquetry constructions and ceramics by three different artists.
Award-winning painter Bridget Moore has long been attracted to the subject of circuses, fairgrounds and theatres. Sometimes dark and edgy, her work has an energy that captures the sense of faded grandeur and exciting atmosphere of performance, often based on her childhood memories. Bringing an enchanting feeling of nostalgia are the highly-skillful constructions by Steven Hubbard, whose ingenious work takes the viewer by surprise with paintings hidden behind doors and secret panels, all set off with finely finished frames and cabinetry. Every part the master of his oeuvre, Steven Hubbard is a true perfectionist and each piece is beautifully crafted with a variety of materials and techniques. Claire Loder’s work explores ideas of memory, contemplation and melancholy through the medium of clay. Her ceramic heads inspire humour and absurdity, but also carry an eerie realism through the fixed stare of their eyes, which suggests a real figure obscured with a mask. Intriguingly, as a child she spent a number of months in the close company of a group of circus clowns who were put up to stay with her family whilst the troupe were in town. The legacy of this experience is clear in her work.
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Biographies
Bridget Moore RBA NEAC RWS
Born in 1960 at Whitstable, Kent. Bridget Moore studied art at Medway College of Design, Epsom School of Art & Design, then the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 1984 when she was awarded the prestigious Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award.
Elected a member of The Royal Society of British Artists in 1989 and a member of The New English Art Club in 2005 she has exhibited continually since leaving art school. Her work has been seen in
mixed and solo shows in many London galleries and across the UK including Royal Academy Summer Shows and also in the USA. Amongst some of the prizes awarded her she was a runner up in the Lynn
Painter-Stainers prize for 2006.
Bridget Moore works mainly in gouache but also in oils and mixed media. Those viewing her paintings will not always find them easy to read at first sight. This is deliberate on Bridget's part as she
wants her audience to look deeper before realising the image.
Steven Hubbard
Steven Hubbard, born in London in 1954 studied fine art at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design. He has taught fine art for over 30 years and has held regular one-man exhibitions in London. He regularly exhibits at the Royal Academy Summer Show and the Royal West of England Academy, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. Hubbard has three different practices – linocut printmaking, painting and marquetry-based constructions.
Claire Loder
Claire Loder is an internationally exhibited graduate of Bath Spa University and University Wales Institute, Cardiff, with work in a number of important public collections including the Crafts Council, Abertstwyth University and The House of Dreams Museum, London.
Loder is a published authority on contemporary ceramics and her book ‘The New Ceramics: Sculpting and Handbuilding’ perfectly sums up her passion and knowledge of ceramics as a fine art medium for exploring her conceptual ideas. The legacy of this experience is clear in her work.