Abundance Review
Abundance, VO Curations
February - March 2024
Abundance was a touring exhibiting of artworks by the artists Chandrakant Patel (ActionSpace, London), Erin Keogh (Project Ability, Glasgow) and Kathy Wilmott (Venture Arts, Manchester). The touring exhibition is the culmination of a three year collaborative project between ActionSpace, Project Ability and Venture Arts celebrating the excellence of their work with learning disabled artists.
Images: Abundance, Private View, VO Curations, 2024 Photo credit: Nicola Tree
As part of the Abundance exhibition Sally Hirst wrote and recorded audio descriptions. Sally took time to engage with each piece on display and produced poetic audio descriptions for the exhibition. Sally is a studio artist at Venture Arts.
Installation By Chandrakant Patel
Many artworks together forming group
Some rectangle shapes and some are square shape
Drawn in work Different shaped circular loops
Corner of art stuck with pieces of tape
Each piece of art has one main colour paint
Organic shapes inside loops like a cell
Some shapes are clear and bold others are faint
Wonder if each shape has story to tell
Some colours are a light pale pastel shade
Other works use colours heavy and bright
Some colours dark some shapes sharp feel afraid
I like how yellow adds a sense of light
Each work laid out together with great care
Making this piece very pleasing to stare
Chandrakant Patel is an artist based at ActionSpace in London.
His exquisite and culturally layered practice combines painting and drawing, which are then used to create multiple wall collages. His drawing technique combines crisp free flowing lines and delicate short marks, echoing the patterns of Hindu mandalas. Chandrakant's painting is often large-scale and once a series is created, he will develop and install varied layouts to explore connections between each piece.
Blue Painting by Erin Keogh
An abstract painting with a blue background
Two rusty metallic tubes criss cross
Tubes are grey but some areas are browned
One of tube has red shading all across
Tubes have 3d feel for painting that’s flat
What looks like a red london bus below
Brush strokes creating a crash just like that
You may disagree that’s what i see though
Rectangle red shape blue window like squares
Splashes of purple below looks like wheels
Brush stroke textured paint going everywhere
Explosion of colour gives crash like feel
Crash mainly red with bits of white and green
So much more I imagine to be seen
Erin Keogh is an artist based at Project Ability in Glasgow.
Erin creates large, expressive and thoughtfully composed abstract paintings. The colour palette, layering and application of paint all become physical choices for Erin, resulting in richly energetic paintings.
Elvis by Kathy Wilmott
This piece is a lovely Soft round ball shape
colourful swirly circles all around
ball is not perfectly round since it drapes
Thick red and white string on ball tightly bound
There’s blue, green, yellow, orange and red used
You can see big bold knots on end of string
Reminds me of disco ball dance and groove
Big Long stitches of string to pluck and ping
Some string is doubled for different thickness
Some string overlaps making different shapes
Not a single corner here to witness
Tied up tight like it’s about to escape
Stitching and pastels on fabric used here
Elvis By Kathy Wilmott made this year
Kathy Wilmott is an artist based at Venture Arts in Manchester.
Kathy's work is full of movement. Flowing looping lines and vivid colour combinations fill space and surface immersively. Kathy works across a variety of mediums, including illustration, textiles and ceramics and her practice draws upon her love of music.
Abundance was part of the Explorers Project supported by Arts Council England and the Paul Hamlin Foundation.