‘BEE LINES’
new work by Alice Forward
Site09 Darbyshire award winner

27th February – 14th March
Preview: Saturday 27th February 2009 3-6pm
Exhibition dates: 27th February-14th March
Tuesday-Saturday 10am-3pm
Sunday 11am-1pm

As the winner of the Site Darbyshire award, Alice Forward was offered an exhibition at Stroud Valleys Artspace (SVA) and the manufacture of new work from Darbyshire Framemakers. Beyond the presentation of a cheque, the award offers a mentoring service from Mark Darbyshire and SVA in the form of a dialogue with the winner, in order to realize work which previously could only have existed at the proposal stage.

“Day to day I meet artists, collectors and curators whose enthusiasm for the visual arts has inspired me in some small way to make a contribution towards the cultural climate surrounding contemporary art practice… Through the prize I hope to offer support and encouragement to artists, giving them opportunity to bring their work before an audience for debate and criticism.” Mark Darbyshire 2010

Darbyshire has quickly established itself as a leading framer and art fabricator, providing creative solutions through a process of collaborative consultation. This belief in creative collaboration has been at the heart of much of Darbyshire's work, and has attracted a range of high-profile clients; artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, commercial galleries such as Gagosian and White Cube, and public museums such as the Serpentine Gallery and the Royal Academy, as well as numerous private collectors including Charles Saatchi.

Alice Forward exhibited at the Site09 Darbyshire exhibition in June 09 alongside work by national and international artists. The exhibition was part of the Site festival, an annual festival of contemporary arts that takes place in Stroud, Gloucestershire. Tom Trevor, Director of the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, selected and short-listed the entries for the award.

The Darbyshire Award was awarded to Alice Forward for her piece ‘Gold Label’, shown at the Museum in the Park as part of the exhibition of work by shortlisted artists. Forward transformed a puddle of her own urine on steps outside the museum into gold by drawing around it and laying gold leaf on top. Laden with social and historical references as well those as mark-making, poetry and alchemy, Forward says of the work; “it’s about playing around with ideas of status and prejudice.”

“Alice Forwards Gold Label is a fantastically subtle and multi-layered work of
art… In the time-honoured alchemical tradition, Alice Forward has taken a base material and transformed it into gold. In so doing she has created a work that resonates not only with the history of art but also with the local history of Stroud and with the prevailing history of gender politics in the context of the public realm, as well as our own personal, psychological histories in relation to the social policing of bodily function”. Tom Trevor 2009

‘BEE LINES is a show of new sculpture, drawing and video which, according to the artist “is a series of ongoing explorations around the ambivalences in our relationship with the natural world, and about ideas of territory.” Following a period of fascination by and research into the history and philosophy of map-making, manifesting itself recently in the form of intensely fine pencil rubbings, a more recent interest; mans relationship with the honey bee, has found a place in Forward’s work. The artist cites the migration of plants, empire building, colonisation and the use of both maps and bees as symbolic tools as significant themes within her work.

A new project called BEE-LINE will also be launched as part of the exhibition. Two purpose-built beehives will feature and at the end of the exhibition these will be pressed into the making of a ‘Bee Line’ between Stroud and Bristol, helping to promote links between both places as well as highlight the worldwide importance of all pollinators. Documentation of the setting up and fortunes of the hives will take place and can be seen on the BEE LINES website.

Born and brought up in Johannesburg, South Africa, Alice Forward studied fine art at Hornsey School of Art in London before training in documentary film-making and freelancing for BBC Television, ultimately returning to independent practice. Following further studies, directorships and setting up of initiatives, she won the Darbyshire Award in 2009, before taking part in the AIM Biennale in Marrakech and doing an artist residency at Joya, Andalusia. She is currently based at BV STUDIOS, Bristol.