Sensuality in Stone

'Sensuality in Stone' is back at J/M Gallery for a third exhibition, showing stone sculptures by four talented artists that are united by the fluid and emotive qualities that can be discovered in stone.

Kim Francis has long been passionate about the carving process, self taught through exploring her passion and materials as diverse as wood, and snow, she discovered stone. The inherent integrity and nobility of this material remains her great love. She has a deep appreciation for creating and discovering the living forms hidden within this ancient material, always inviting touch.

Mel Fraser has been carving in stone for over thirty years, her body of work is a diverse and multifaceted, carving ethereal abstract and entrancing figurative works, each laden with profound symbolic significance. She possesses an innate ability to interpret the unique idiosyncrasies of each piece of stone carving it into diaphanous veils of rippling alabaster, or conjuring a gleaming nimbus from within the rock itself. Fraser expertly probes at limits of the physical properties of stone to the brink of destruction, examining form, space and materiality with an earnest and palpable curiosity.

Ana Ruiz Agüí seeks through conceptual and abstract sculpture to manifest the beauty of the stone, the dynamics of the curves and the contrasts between different textures. She wants to create sculpture with character, without getting lost in detail, allowing the material to speak for itself and to breathe. She is looking for a synthesis of complexity with cadence and harmony.

Anthony grew up on a coffee farm near Nairobi and later lived on the beautiful north coast around Malindi. Early influences include two meticulous Kikuyu carpentry teachers, and the graceful modest elegance of Giriama and Kamba people. Anthony has travelled whenever possible for immersion in the extraordinary legacies left in stone by Celtic, Egyptian, Inca and Indian craftsmen. He worked as an assistant to the sculptor Peter Randall-Page for four years to learn skilled stone carving, with his main workshop in the Teign Valley on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon.