In the Water is on!
A monster of the deep rubs shoulders with a monster of the shallows in the latest art exhibition “In the Water” at Artists Harbour Gallery, the fine art gallery in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
The monster of the deep is the legendary RMS Titanic, captured close up through the lens of South Coast photographer Rob Goldsmith. In 2005 Rob was lucky enough to win a competition to dive down and photograph the final resting place of the “unsinkable” luxury liner that met a North Atlantic iceberg and took hundreds of passengers to their deaths on her maiden voyage in 1912. Rob has produced two stunning colour photo prints of the great barnacle-encrusted ship for Artists Harbour.
Pictures of swimmers nervously rub shoulders in the exhibition with a monster of the shallows, a fearsomely toothed 9ft. alligator with jaws like a steel trap … literally. Artist-blacksmith Steve Woodbridge made the impressive reptile from scrap steel. Steve is a member of The Guild of Wrought Ironwork Craftsmen of Wessex and uses forging techniques, flame cutting and welding to produce his stunning one off pieces.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, photographs of a junked bike and tyres in a stream jostle with more sparkling by Justin Parry, sexy textile mermaids by former Portsmouth College of Art and Design teacher Heather Lipscombe and installations of both video art (underwater swimmers by Denise Callender) and the sounds of Mongolian rivers, springs, waterfalls and ice recorded by Simon Whetham, the first time Artists Harbour has exhibited video and sound pieces.
Other featured artists include: Mary Chidlow, Rosy Maguire, Martin Piercy, Sue Oliver, Lyneth Howells, Julien Masson, Tracey Betts, Hilary Barry, Clare Flynn, Shaun Hall, Enzo Marra and Julie Scrivens.
