Devon-based artist Will Cruickshank presents a series of wall and floor-based works, that share a formal language of colour, pattern and symmetry that sits in balance with an air of devotional craftsmanship. Many of his works are textile-based, comprised of brightly coloured yarn, precisely arranged in complex, symmetrical patterns and supported by hand-crafted wooden structures. While these may at first suggest a connection to traditional weaving and spinning processes, their minimal, pared back and abstract forms belie the artist’s more eccentric and experimental production methods.

In the studio, Cruickshank devises complex, makeshift machines that spool, wind, bind and overlay layers of yarn, or else drive crude, automatic carving machines. He consciously reuses and repurposes existing parts, salvaged from old cement mixers, bicycles, chainsaws or potters’ wheels, combining them with a variety of home-made levers, hooks and pulleys. It is a practice grounded in learning by doing, and thinking through making, where ideas are tested by trial and error and techniques are adapted and honed through exploration. Material, machine, and maker, each take their turn in leading or resisting outcomes and it is this sensitivity to this push and pull that drives Cruickshank’s work.

www.willcruickshank.com/

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY

Artist’s Talk
Sat 25 Mar 2023 | 1.30pm | free (booking essential)

Join the artist Will Cruickshank as he discusses the exhibition and his wider practice. This talk is free, but booking is essential. The artist’s talk will take place in our cinema Studio 74.

Find out more and book here

VENUE: PHOENIX GALLERY, EXETER PHOENIX