Approved: 02.08.2016

Tony Humbleyard

Artist

Approved: 02.08.2016
 
 

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        Artist Statement

         

        Poetic statements & Sculptural forms

        My work engages with site and collaboration. exploring social, psychological and physical space. Unearthing  the 'UseHistories' of place and how they inform the urgencies of now and our responses.. 

        Exploring what it means to live an embedded relationship to place.I  have lived and worked on Unst since 2005 engaged in a process of Deep Listening and a sustainable Social Art practice. I work within walking, cycling , kayaking distance of the Shorestation, inviting others into this ecology to collaborate and to develop a sustainable engagement and immersive experience through ongoing projects and residencies.

        i use random journeys, direct experience and the gathering of found objects. I constructing sculptures, interventions and poetic statements. Seeking out the patterns and continuities, the connections between our internal and external geographies. Exploring the perceptual landscapes that frame our actions in the world. As experience becomes increasingly commodified, my work is a reclamation of being present in any given place. Using space itself  as an element that conjures form and narrative, a way of testing this present moment and our relationship to it.

        ‘Rock, fences, cloud and houses/ marks in a landscape/ looking for the continuities/ an alchemical gathering of found objects and direct experience/the space between thoughts/ liminal places/ dissident voices carried in the wind/ new ecologies ebb and flow/ a quiet wisdom carried in the cadence of a stream…’

        Abandoning guidebooks/maps/signs in favour of wandering/direct experiences.Exploring the visceral territory of our lived experience.The ‘found object’ offers an aesthetic of things imperfect and impermanent, a simplicity of form. Marked by time, eroded by the elements, artefacts of our past and present. In engaging with the past I don’t seek to romanticize it, but to see it as waymarker to possible futures. Often my final sculptures arise from the relationship between different objects/materials, an intuitive process unfolding over many months and many journeys. Exploring the visceral territory of our lived experience.

        Living and working in a geographically remote community (Unst Shetland Islands) I am interested in the possibilities of collaboration as a working process. For me it enables a deeper exploration of the work itself and the  possibilities that arise when other, hands, eyes, perceptions and skills are involved. I am especially interested in working across disciplines.

        'At the edge we are caught in liminal space, the tension between what has gone before and what is to be..'

                                        Elisabeth McCormack

         

        CV & Education

         

        Tony Humbleyard CVExhibitions etc.

        2023 – Opening – Published by Dark Mountain Project.

        2023 Scottish Landscape Awards - Exhibition

        2022  Social Crofting Research  VACMA Bursary

        2021 Invisible Dances Performance/sculpture Shetland

        2021 Not the time to be Silent  Spoken word/ video installation performance Limerick Ireland

        2020 VACMA award for 'Usehistories' Project.

        2019- Social@rthub Residency with Curator Rachel Grant https://www.fertileground.info

        2019 - Social@rthub promoting Elisabeth Schillings 'Felt' https://www.facebook.com/1707893462629197/videos/361360041244217/

        2018 - Fierce Urgency of Now - with National Theatre of Scotland Aberdeen

        2018 - 'Walking the spaces' - Sumburghead Residency

        2017 'Walking the Spaces'  collaboration with dancer Kathryn Spence

        2017  Openspace Residency  with Elisabeth Schilling Sixfold

        2016 Bone & Shadow with dancer/choreographer Jack Webb Bonhoga Shetland

        2015   Drift  installation with Vision Mechanics - Shetland

        2014   Experience Bronze - Milton Gallery Banchory 

        2013   Bare  Exhibition  - Staircase Gallery Lomond

        2013   All Talk  - NEA Gallery Edinburgh

        2013   Pathways of Desire -  Coast Festival Banff

        2013   Natural Selection  -  Moray Arts Centre

        2010   Sculpture exhibition  - Pittenween Festival

        2009   SSW Residency  - Lumsden

        Awards 2017

        Openspace Residencies - funded by Creative Scotland

        Visual Arts Development Award - Shetland Arts

         

        Sculptor/Installation artist/socialarthub facilitator

         

        2019 Establishment of Social@rtHub Project

         2017 Openspace residency programme at the Shorestation.

        2014    Stone Carving course,Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

        2007/9  Fine Art BA(hons)- Moray (UHI)

        2005  Fine Art (HND) - Calderdale College

        2004  Art Therapy training - Leeds Met

        2003  Art & Conflict Training - Marian Liebmen

        2002  Certificate in Education - Leeds

        2000 NCBI Prejudice Reduction Trainers Course.