FOUND|LAND
AT MORLEY GALLERY
CASS BREEN |LOUISE HARDY | CHARLY HELYAR | SARAH HILLS
CURATED BY ELOISE DETHIER-EATON
“Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.”
Søren Kierkegaard
In March 2024, Cass Breen, Louise Hardy, Charly Helyar and Sarah Hills embarked on a month-long art residency in Newfoundland, Canada. Art residencies are creative micro-climates: each one has its own distinct set of atmospheric conditions and challenges, operating independently from the wider environment. By stepping out of their comfort zone and into a new context for the duration of the residency, artists are asked to carve out a temporary refuge for making their work, which can have profound repercussions once they are back home.
The four artists arrived in the remote former fishing town of Pouch Cove, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, in the depths of winter and were met with extreme cold weather in an alien, snow-covered landscape. Each of them came to Newfoundland with a different attitude and approach; some armed with a plan of action, others ready to make site-responsive work inspired by their unfamiliar location. But none left unchanged. They all absorbed the experience fully, relished having the time away from other pressures to focus on their practice and felt more determined than ever to continue on their paths as professional practitioners. This strengthened their relationship as a collective of colleagues and friends, which had begun years prior, when they studied on an MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. As individuals however, they each had their own singular experience and were impacted differently over time.
An artist’s creative trajectory is rarely made up of a single, linear thread. Sometimes one has to make a move backwards or sideways, before moving forwards. The impacts of experiences like this one may sink into the background for a while before coming to the fore, sometimes in unexpected ways. By presenting some work made during the residency, but the majority made since the artists’ return, FOUND|LAND seeks to unveil what the artists found out about themselves and their practice, consciously or subconsciously, in the aftermath of this residency.
