M74 completion news
spring issue 6 2010.
(Interlink M74 JV)
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Anyone in the vicinity of Port Englinton Viaduct may see not only engineers, steel erectors, steelfixers and scaffolders at work, but also a couple of artists with either a sketchbook or video recorder in there hands.
Halifax-based artist Hilary Lloyd has fallen in love with the activity which surrounds the planning, communication and teamwork when steelwork rises from the ground.
She is also fascinatee by the persistence of team to overcome the challenges which demand the huge beams sit perfectly in place, supported by foundations and designed to cope with decades of loads and stresses.
Hilary's early love of civil engineerimg sits well with her desire to portray engineering images by mullti-layering film - just as a painter applies paints to canvas.
The M74 Completion project came to her attention when Hilary was exhibiting her work in the tramway theatre last summer and she felt complelled to move from her base in London to be close to a project which so captured her imagination.
Hilary's exhibition, to be called either M74 Completeion or simply Motorway, opens in London in November 2010.
Another artest sketching the structure and transferring her emotions to canvas via paints, bitumen, road lining paint and other materials is Laura Antebi. |
Born in Aberdeen and brought up in Glasgow, Laura's earliest years as an artest were spent as a portrait painter in shoppong malls and craft fairs as well as on her world travels through Asia, Africa, Sufan, New Zealand and Australia over a period of fifteen years.
Laura became involved in an art project at the McLellan Galleries in Glasgow where she was invited to see what she could do with some old fence wire and this led to a complete change in artistic direction.
Laura created a wire sculpture of a horse - and from that point on has never looked back. Now sculpting with metal, Laura wants to capture the character of her subject rather than create a copy of what he sees.
She is now trabsferring to canvas how she feels about the M74 and is creating something which, to the untrained eye, looks nothing like M74. Laura said "What you wi;; see is my response to what I see, the power of launch steel at Port Eglinton, the great teamwork and effort and brainpower that has created this wonderful structure and slid it into position, poised for the next move."
The same wire, salvaged by Mclellan Galleries all those years ago, was from the location of the M74 Completion project's Cathcart Road Underbridge. Laura added: "Time and again, the Gorbals has provided the inspiration for my art."
For more information about the works of Hilary and Laura please see Hilary Lloyd - Works, Articles, Clips and Stills | Luxonline and www.thewirestudio.co.uk/artist.htm |
KILMARNOCK
STANDARD
October 2007
Feature article
words Ian Russell
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ICONIC
British breakfast cereal Shredded Wheat celebrated British Food
Fortnight earlier this month with an exhibition of sculptures
of famous British landmarks - made out of British Wheat!
And flying the flag for Scotland, in London's Leicester Square,
was Galston artist Laura Antebi.
The 'Land of Wheat and Glory' exhibition drew together
eight leading British artists from across the country who had
prepared their own wheat masterpieces.
Laura's was a scupture of Edingbrugh Castle.
In a recent poll, the Auld Reekie landmark was voted
by people in Scotland as the best to represent north of the border.
Said Laura this week: "The roughness of the wheat
translated well to portray the rugged nature of the Scottish Landscape
and ancient feel that Edinbrugh Castle evokes." |
By Ian Russell
Also on show at Leicester
Square last week were wheat interpretations of Big Ben, which
was, in the end, voted the most iconic landmark to represent the
UK on a national level (artist Michelle Reader, from London),
the Giant's Causway, Mount Snowdon, the Angel of the North, Blackpool
Tower, Shakespeare's Birthplace and the Eden Project.
Said Susie Weisberger of Shredded Wheat: "We
wanted to find the one single thing that British people think
best represents their region. The exhibition of wheat sculptures
was a celebration of Britishness and Laura's castle was a wonderful
entry from Scotland."
LONDON
CALLING: Laura's exhibit clashed with other nationwide
entries in the capital last week. |
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UPTOWN
February & March 2007
Feature article
words Lindsay Russell
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INSPIRED by the planet and its wealth of resources, live-wire sculptor
Laura Antebi has travelled the world during the last 15 years.
It was her experiences during this time which lead her to pursue
a career as a figurative artist, exploring nature and form with
lifelike impressionistic pieces made from galvanised steel or
copper wire.
Essentially self-taught, Laura started scupting in wire
in 1995, five years before completing a BA Hons degree in Scupture
at Dundee's Duncan of Jordanstone College of Fine Art, and has
since displayed her work at a number of exhibitions across Scotland
and England. There are also a number of permanent displays of
her work including a leaping salmon at Crown Estate offices in
Edinbrugh and a life-sized racehorse at a racing stable in Dorset.
Despite the |
popularity of her equine pieces, Laura says she doesn't really
have a favourite piece as such: "When I'm working I connect
with the individuality and intergrity of whatever life-form I'm
translating into wire. Looking back at my work is like looking
at footprints in the sand...coordinates I can trace on the map
of my personal journey as an artist."
Laura
works directly from life or from memory to create the graceful
life-like |
sculptures, which can take anything from two weeks to several
months to create, depending on the density of wire and degree
of resolution. Using recycled wire, because of the history it
retains, Laura brings the pieces to life with a slight turn or
angle of the head, endeavouring to unite art with the spiritual
essence of the figures, which convey spontaneity and freedom of
movement.
In the coming months she's hoping to challenge herself
as a painter and explore the dimension of colour as well as preparing
work for forthcoming exhibitions, which include a show at the
Horse Racing Museum in Newmarket in September.
(reproduced
with kind permission of Uptown Magazine) |
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The
Home Show magazine
Sept. 2000
Cover and feature article
words Wendy Travis
photos Henry McInnes
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Wendy Travis comes face to face with a herd of maghificent horses and other wire animals, the work of live-wire sculptor Laura Antebi |
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Laura Antebi has the ability to turn 80 kilos of common or garden wire into a living breathing horse - its mane and tail streaming in the wind as it prances proudly across a sun dappled meadow. She can work the same magic to produce other animals too, but its her equine alchemy which tends to inspire the kind of purple prose I've been moved to indulge in above.
.......................................................
 Entirely
self-taught, Laura's talents are clearly instinctive and there's
something vaguely uncanny about her ability to so accurately evoke
power and vibrancy with nothing more than the basest of metals.There's
nothing remotely fey or other-worldly about the actual construction
process however." One of the bigger horses, roughly quarter-size,
will take between two and three months to make," says Laura,
"and it is very hard work, very physical. Larger pieces,
like the horses - can weigh as much as 100 kilos and I often  have
to move them myself with the aid of a fairly primitive lever system.
Although most of the form is created during the actual build up
of the wire, I carry on long after the actual construction is
complete using lumps of rock as tools for the 'fine tuning'."
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(extracts and photos reproduced with kind permission) |
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Farmers Guardian
www.farmgate.co.uk
aug 18th 2000
Feature article
edited by Jean Alcorn
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At
the first glance it seems that a herd of horses and
ponies is flolicking in the field- and by the water
a heron or crane has landed. |
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Move closer and you discover these are not creatures in the flesh but their spirit and movement has been captured in wire; stunning graceful sculptures, ingeniously created using fencing wire and cable wire.
Laura antebi, whose workshop, The Wire Studio, is at Drumlanrig Castle, Thornhill, Dumfriesshire, is the artist responsible, describing the talent as 'drawing with wire in space'.
She has no formal training in this , nor in the true-to-life pencil portraits she can produce in just 10 minutes (a popular attraction at agricultural shows). "I feel its innate; intuitive. I used to have a horse until I was 18 but I love all animals."
There was nothing in particular which sparked the idea to produce three-dimensional work in wire. "One day I just thought I'd make a horse sculpture using wire," she says. These days she makes horses ranging in size from around 10 inches high to real life pony dimensions. She also works wire, coiled and twisted upon itself, into hares, geese, swans, stags and kestrels - lifelike yet with an impressionistic edge, a blend of heron/crane/stork or hare/rabbit.
Some of the wire used is new; some recycled. "That dark fencing wire came from a farm in Moffat," she says, indicating a shadowy dark area deep in one of her sculptures and in a kestrel , brass furniture fittings have been incorporated to add definition.
It is time consuming, physically hard work. No solder is involved, simply pliers, a hammer, a rock to help bend the wire of different diameters, an eye for detail, dexterity and strength.
"The large pieces can take up to three months to make because they are not something you can work on all day. You basically get sore after a while. I also need a break to study the random movement of the wire and its effect.
"It's not just your hands which suffer; its such strong work that most of your body is effected - a large horse will weigh around 70 kilos when finished," says Laura.
The sculptures are bought for display both indoors and outdoors, the wire, being galvanised, is not adversely effected by the weather.
"The relationship of the metal with light is very special," says Laura. "It dazzles in the sun on a bright day but even if its dull it catches any available light and creates different moods." And whatever the mood, the effect is somehow always right for the moment.
(article reproduced with kind permission) |
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