Environmental study (From Stroud News and Journal)

Environmental study

BEHIND the glitz and trumpeting of on-coming Christmas, the surrounding environment is the constant, quiet hero in Stroud House Gallery's latest exhibition, Environment, opening this week.

"Or is it? It is ever changing and under threat," said curator Lyn Cluer-Coleman.

She has chosen 15 artists whose work represents aspects of our environmental culture: its beauty, its degeneration and its future. Soil, shown in the basement projection area, is a text and time based composition by Grant Smith.

It is a measured progression of images of the familiar domestic outdoors - layered with complex language and signifying the slow changes affected by physical intervention.

Giles Corby's work is a sculptural depiction of a devastated cityscape. The suggested isolation results from an almost filmic narrative that implies a dramatic occurrence and of time moving on.

'Fold me and sail away with me' is an installation by Claudia Borgna that highlights the overflow of waste encountered in her extensive travelling. Rubbish and man made objects are transforming and creating new landscapes.

Her use of flimsy disposable material elevates the banal into colourful poetic line and form.

Silvy Weatherall's paintings concentrate on the patterns made in the agricultural landscape, documenting marks left by intensive farming. George Melly describes Silvy's recent work as "where realism meets op art".

Other artists include: Stephen Healy; Linda Meakin; Yoko Fukada; Fiona Robinson; Clara Clark; Joel Papps; Gemma Gore; Nicky Neate; Roger Hopgood; Rosalind Shaye and Sarah Brasier.

The exhibition opens on Wednesday, November 23 and runs until December 23 at the Stroud House Gallery, Station Road, Stroud, Glos GL5 3AP The gallery is open Wednesday to Saturday from 10.30am - 5.00pm or by appointment.