Stroud puts art in fold (From Stroud News and Journal)

Stroud puts art in fold

THIS MONTH Stroud House Gallery is home to the work of fifteen UK artists, each responding to the new exhibition's theme of Fold It.

Using traditional origami folds, Arabella Lee fuses this ancient art form with a spinning bicycle wheel, a dark environment and strobe lighting to produce an installation entitled Suspended in the Fold.

London based artist Patrizia Sottile brings rich colour to the exhibition with My Father and I, a piece selected for a Massenzio Arte International Prize, Rome. It is a graphical and chronological sequence illustrating the journey of conflicting perspectives surrounding the theme of belonging.

Maggie Bonsey, a graduate from Surrey Institute of the Arts, dominates an entire room of the gallery with seventy five of her vibrant soft floor sculptures and an additional twenty five paper formations climbing the walls.

This month's show also features two local artists, each displaying a meticulous level of detail in their work. Mark Pitcher's precisely folded butterflies, 'On Sense & Reference' exists in a state of constant flux, developing according to both the physical and temporal space available. Andrew Morrison, a lecturer in Graphic Design, Illustration and

Printmaking at Stroud College shows book-like objects, making sheets read as 'pages' Also exhibiting are artists Georgina Hooper, Joanna Bryan, Sarah Ingham, Helen Cass, Jane Walker, Myra Fricker, Lauretta Rose, Anna Steiner, Chris Rose and Sue Hiley Harris.

Fold It runs from Wednesday, February 23 to March 25 at the Stroud House Gallery, Station Road, Stroud. The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 10.30am - 5.00pm or by appointment.