Vivien Whitaker's Retrospective 'Source of Inspiration' opens at Towneley Art Gallery, Burnley

During the last few days I have had the privilege of again working with Vivien Whitaker in order to assist with the curation and hanging of her first retrospective – 'Source of Inspiration' – which opens at Towneley Art Gallery in Burnley this weekend. This perfectly formed exhibition features most of the major works that Viv has created over the last eleven years. All of the works are crafted from the English Alabaster stone, a stone that has a long and wonderful history in sculpture, but on display in this exhibition are the carvings of some of the last pieces of the Alabaster to be mined in the UK. It is, therefore, an historic display, and in her pieces Viv gives a nod to the traditions of using the stone in the middle ages (mainly for church decoration), as well as to the style of the twentieth-century giants of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth who often carved using English Alabaster.


Over lunch I chatted to Viv and asked her about how she felt about the exhibition.


Why did you decide to hold this – your first retrospective – here in Burnley?
I was born and brought up in Burnley, and Towneley Art Gallery was the first art gallery I ever went to as a child. It was a place I came to very frequently and was my first experience of art; I think that was very inspirational. That is one of the reasons why we have called the exhibition 'Source of Inspiration', but this title also refers to the medium that features in the exhibition. I have been carving the last of the English Alabaster for the last ten years and that has been a huge source of inspiration for me.

Can you remember what was here when you used to visit all those years ago?
Bill the big bear; in my day you could touch him, but these days you can't. But I think it was seeing lots and lots of different kind of visual art which really made the impression on me.


Tell us a bit about your journey in getting to this exhibition.
I started carving Alabaster in 2002, so it has been eleven years, but this exhibition has been 18 months in the making, and it has been very exciting. Typically I do joint exhibitions so I do the bit in the middle and someone else does the walls, but having this solo exhibition was a huge challenge. As a direct carver I don't make sketches or anything like that so I have literally nothing to put on the walls. One of my collectors – Robert Shaw – said to me 'What do you so with the dust' and I said 'Well I put it on the compost heap, what else would you so with it?' He said 'Why don't you make something with it?' This big challenge has been something that has evolved to be the Dust Montages, which are three-dimensional collages made of alabaster dust, chippings from the carvings, mixed with a whole range of different media. Very experimental. I went back to the middle ages when they made tempura with egg yolk, and I mixed some of it with egg yolk which, with the red dust produced a very vivid orange, and I thought I had better cover that with varnish fairly quickly in case it started to smell. I also experimented with how I put things on, so I used pine cones and ferns, and feathers rather than painting things on. With one of the other dust montages – Exploding Star – I flicked mixtures (in a very Jackson Pollock way) across the horizontal aspect, which was great fun. With the third montage I built up using sculptural clay to create a very different effect.


What was your vision behind the selection of the works?
One of the special things for me is to get work from the whole ten year period so that people – including myself – can see how my work has developed over the whole ten years. My private collectors have been very generous because they have allowed the works to come out for the exhibition. This is the first time that I will have seen my major pieces together, never mind anyone else. I have another set of works in private collections which – because of their delicate nature – we were unable to bring up for the exhibition. We were still very keen to have them represented in the display so I have produced gicleé prints of those works to hang on the walls.

What does it mean to you to have a Retrospective?
It feels fabulous! It feels the right time because I have just carved the last large piece of English Alabaster: from an Alabaster point of view there is no more English Alabaster left. It feels like an ending. The soundscapes that will be played at the exhibition are something that I have created from the sounds of the Alabaster lithophone that I made, along with sounds of me working, and I have called it The Last of the English Alabaster. For me it is a very poignant piece; it very slowly fades away, which for me is about the history of English Alabaster, how it has been used and also how now not only is there not much of it left, but people don't see much of it either. It is really important to me that visitors to the exhibition are able to see all of these last pieces of the English Alabaster: they can see it in the public collections, but this will be the only time they can see my works that are in private collections, which are some of the most dramatic pieces.


Vivien Whitaker's Retrospective 'Source of Inspiration' is on at the Towneley Art Gallery until 12^th December.