also see www.lightdark.uk

Tide and Twilight 2018: a group show, with works for sale, was at Birdwood House, High Street, Totnes, Devon, UK, from 12 to 17 November 2018

old news written when it was current:

Jo Crook exhibition: seaweed pressings / prints from land and sea

Overbecks, Sharpitor, Salcombe, Devon, TQ8 8LW, UK
from Sunday 23 July 2017
free entry, but the National Trust charges for entry to the property

Revealed: the variety and beauty of marine algae and other flora

Anyone who has walked on a beach or swum in the sea has seen seaweed: usually as a dark mass, tangled, of indeterminate shape, usually part of the background rather than as compelling individual objects.

The selection of seaweed pressings in this exhibition shows much more: a seemingly endless variety of shape, size, form, texture and colour. Individual specimens are carefully arranged and pressed on to fine art watercolour paper to fix their variety and beauty for viewing. The finished artworks have some of the visual appearance of formal biological reference material, but their purpose is entirely artistic: they represent an attempt to impose formality - a classical coolness - upon natural beauty. Smaller seaweeds are set out in groups which complement each other in colour and shape.

The marine specimens were found washed up on local beaches, at the end of their lives, and about to decay, but used instead for these artworks, so there is no loss to biodiversity, only as nutrition for a few saprophytes.

The light and dark prints are made by digitally scanning physical objects at high resolution, carrying out highly individual digital modifications, then printing them - again at high resolution - in light- and fade-resistant ink on photographic paper, a process known as giclée printing. The modifications are almost entirely to remove scanning artefacts and to improve clarity, not to misrepresent the objects; the art lies in selection and interpretation.

All the works are for sale. Please contact Jo Crook at jmcrook@hotmail.com, www.jocrook.co.uk or 07896021241.

You can view the exhibition at all times when Overbecks is open. It is a National Trust property, so there may be a charge for entry; there is no subsequent entry charge for the exhibition.