Trevor Sutton: SMALL WORLD

SMALL WORLD is an exhibition of two halves - work made before and work made after the prism of Covid.

The work in the exhibition from pre-COVID times, was made in response to two different trips, to the Midi Pyrenees in 2018 for a month-long residency, and to Orkney in 2019 for a walking vacation.

The exhibition title, SMALL WORLD, derives principally from the Norfolk collages, but also from the overwhelming feeling of no longer being free to travel abroad and from a sense of shrinking perspective, kept from seeing friends and from shared cultural activity. “A handful of people and places became my whole world in these exceptional times.”  Trevor Sutton.

"In March 2020 I left my home and studio in London at the start of the pandemic, not thinking I would be spending the next 5 months in Norfolk. Along with my wife Carol Robertson (also an artist) I drove to Norfolk on the 20th March and moved into the workspace of artist Roger Ackling. Roger and I had shared a house together in London before he and his wife Sylvia moved to Norfolk. We had taught together at Chelsea College of Art. Sylvia invited us for as long as we wanted to stay and his workspace was to serve as both our studio and bedroom. Our time was now spent isolating in a beautiful 1890s Art & Crafts house and large garden with its own orchard, wood and flower garden."

“Surprisingly, it was to be an extremely creative period. The combination of garden work and walking with studio time seemed to strike a perfect balance. In hindsight, it was a very happy period.” Trevor Sutton.

"I worked solely with small pieces of oil-painted paper or with watercolour, on a long work table by windows looking out onto a raked gravel courtyard. I started assembling collages in to distinctly shaped sets. Everything I made was on a small and intimate scale which I became aware, was as much related to Roger’s work as it was to the confines of my workspace. Roger made small hand-held wood pieces, focussing the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass and burning horizontal linear patterns onto either found wood or simple utility-based wooden objects. His spirit pervaded.”

"I started assembling collages into distinctly shaped sets. Everything I made was on a small and intimate scale. I found myself constructing and painting in response to place and circumstance: my colour referencing the outside, to nature and landscape, to the colour and light of the changing seasons. The shapes and formats derived more from the architecture, both inside and out. I started making triangles and trapezoids. Surprisingly, it was to be an extremely creative period. The combination of garden work and walking with studio time seemed to strike a perfect balance. In hindsight, it was a very happy period." Trevor Sutton.