Art exploring landscape
Flora Parrott, Artist in Residence, Ryedale Folk Museum (RFM)
19 February to 27 March 2011
Artist Flora Parrot explores the complex histories, relationships, meanings and significances of a section of the North York Moors in her new installation, Dipole, which will be on show at the Ryedale Folk Museum from 19 February 2011. The artwork is the result of a residency project between contemporary artist Parrott, and the rural folk museum, based on the remote North Yorkshire Moors, which has allowed her the opportunity to explore the social, historical and artistic constructions of a small section of Spaunton Moor whilst engaging with the museum and it’s collections. Throughout the residency, during October and November 2010, she identified, surveyed and mapped a section of the moor with the help of a variety of specialists, who offered the artist differing perspectives on the chosen site. On occasions the plot hosted geographers, dowsers, artists, folklorists, and scientists - often at the same time.
The new installation charts the results of this collective survey and will consist of a shape pegged out on Spaunton Moor the same dimensions as the RFM gallery, ten minutes’ walk from the gallery and a moor-shaped piece placed in the gallery, ten minutes’ walk from Spaunton Moor.
Parrott comments; “The proposal for the project was to make a body of work that visually describes the sensation of standing on the broad expanses of the Moor. My family live on the North Yorkshire Moors, a resounding memory of the land near their house is an overwhelming sense of space, deafening wind and vertiginous slopes. I was struck by a conflicting state of mind. Initially I felt able to ‘tune in’ with the landscape, I could imagine the physical impact of my form on the ground and the forces around me. However, I soon became distracted, it was impossible not to keep trying to rationalise where I was, location, history – to put the land into context, I felt I needed to be able to understand it. IN addition I wanted to look at the human compulsion to unearth, dissect and resolve. The urge to discover what lies beneath the earth underfoot is powerful and magnetic. The Ryedale Folk Museum is the perfect place to explore these ideas, the extensive collection and staff and volunteers with incredible local knowledge.”
Flora Parrott: DIpole will be on show at the Gallery at Ryedale Museum from 19 February until 27 March 2011. Admission to the gallery is free, and daily opening times are 10am – dusk. More info about the gallery programme at www.thegalleryatryedalefolkmuseum.blogspot.com
The Gallery is at Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton le Hole, North Yorkshire YO62 6UA from For more information telephone 01751 417 367, email gallery@ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk or visit www.ryedalefolkmuseum.co.uk