Becky Beasley: Ous

Becky Beasley’s photographs and sculptures, while deeply personal, often develop through an engagement with the ideas and works of other artists and writers. On this occasion, one such figure is artist and designer Eric Ravilious. Towner has one of the largest public collections of Ravilious’ works and this archive became a place for Beasley to start from and journey into. Along the way she encounters Paul Nash and Enid Marx.

Across six room installations, Ous will explore Beasley’s ongoing interest in specific qualities raised by Ravilious’ practice: space, flatness, light, abstraction and nature, as well as his creative friendships. Through the filter of the artist’s deep engagement with the histories and possibilities of photography, the exhibition reflects by turns on themes of gardens, interiors, weather, mourning and human encounter. Featuring newly commissioned linoleum floor designs, photographs and sculptural works, these installations can be experienced as a gently unfolding environment in which questions of interior and exterior become blurred. Space can be experienced as an image, through a subtly dreamlike journey, at once pastoral and sensual.

Becky Beasley lives and works in St Leonards, East Sussex. She has had solo exhibitions at Tate Britain (Art Now) (2012), Spike Island (2012), Leeds City Gallery (2013), Stanley Picker Gallery (2011), and produced solo live projects at Serpentine Pavilion (2010) and South London Gallery (2014). She was shortlisted for the Max Mara Prize in 2009 and the Contemporary Art Society Annual Museum Award in 2014. Her work is currently touring in the Arts Council Touring Artist Curated exhibition, In a dream you saw a way to survive and you were full of joy, curated by Elizabeth Price, and has been included the major group exhibitions including: Narrative Abstractions, Mrac, Sérignan,France (2016 and touring to Mudam, Luxembourg, 2017); A Change of Heart, Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Over You, You: 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (2015); and The Imaginary Museum, Kunstverein Munich, Munich (2012).

image: Becky Beasley, Sedum Joy (Double Grave) 2002/2017, Gelatin silverprint, 105x79cm