This will be the last post on my blog as I've now set up a Web page with galleries, video and information on my practice, which will be live by the end of February 2017.

please go to...
 

www.artofgear.co.uk

 

Oblique [Territories] 2016

A new line of enquiry sees the material I've collected whilst walking being combined as a collage, and includes the use of 'Ento Pins' using in mounting 'specimens' for 'examination'.
The work is sculptural in nature, considering the way we see and use the liminal landscape we live in.

Beating Stick - 2017

Taken from one Swiss Mountain walk 'Beating Stick explores notions around map making, aerial photography, of place and how our perceptions change when looking close up or far away; what we 'miss', what we 'see'.

'Catching Words' at Wordsworth Museum 2015

'Language, Walking; Inducing Creativity' is the title of an artists talk I'll be doing for the Bloomsbury Festival in London on 23rd of October. 
I'll be considering the influences of writers and poets, including Wordsworth and Virginia Woolf, on some of my recent work.
As part of the event the outdoor installation work 'Catching Words' will be on display during the day, last seen in 2015 at the Wordsworth Museum, in Grasmere, Cumbria.

'Fragments (Of Triumph)' N.Gear May 2016

I'm taking part in the Graduate Residents Show (University of Nottingham) from 9th - 23rd of June at the Djanogly Gallery,    NG7 2RD. Part of the work I'm showing will be a case of curiosities with 'fragments' collected and manipulated, contained within the display. The private view is on the 15th of June 6-8pm. 

Objects from Triumph Rd

Walking the perimeter of 6 Triumph Rd where I'm doing my Artists Residency (UnO Nottingham)I've been interrogating the environment finding objects that speak of place and the people who work there.
This is the start of an investigation that will culminate in a work that will be part of the final UnO Nottingham Art Show at the Djanogly Gallery in June this year.

    

'Transcribed [Repetition]'

Cabinets in the doorway of 6 Triumph Rd, Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham, which I've just completed setting up.

The exhibition copy for the display states:

'Drawing, Walking, the 'Edgeland'.

Lines on a surface, mimicking the natural, highlighting the man made, concerned with our yesterdays, informing today, the micro and the macro in the environment we no longer see.

Gears Phenomenological approaches, and haptic marks let the eye wander, whilst interrogating and elucidating on our notions of reality'.

'Mass [Transcribed]- 1 & 2'

I've been working of sculptures ready for the latest Backlit Gallery group show. These are made using found objects as a template along with working into the surface of the forms and are around 1m in height.
The pieces allude to landscape, to past and present, and have a strong haptic quality to the surface.
The exhibition at Backlit runs from the 6th - 21st Feb 2016 - Thursday to Sunday only each week, 12 noon until 5pm. 

'Catching Words[Prelude 1850]2015'© N.Gear

The 'Catching Words' project alluding to the process of Wordsworth pacing his top terrace at Dove Cottage,Grasmere,has taken place at the Wordsworth Museum,Grasmere.
Search 'Catching Words' on YouTube to see the interview I did about the installation; the materials used & the reasons the work came about.

https://youtu.be/8Vp9RRtPj7g

'Catching Words' © 2015 N.Gear

My 'Catching Words' project is ready to go to the Wordsworth Museum, Grasmere, The Lakes, UK and will run from the 19th Sept to the 3rd October 2015.

It considers William Wordsworth's process of pacing the top terrace at Dove Cottage whilst he composed his poetry, trying to find the 'right words'

'Two Sided Form'© 2015 N.Gear

Continuing with the theme of casting from found debris this two sided form has been completed.
It's finished with walnut crystals similar to the process Henry Moore undertook with his plaster sculptures.
This line of enquiry builds on my recent drawing work 'Edgelands', links to research on Wittgenstein, and alludes to the Coxmoor landscape that I've stepped through.

Inspired by the exhibition currently at Yorkshire Sculpture Park of the work of Henry Moore particularly his use of plaster I've been completing casts of found debris, collected whilst walking. It continues to consider what we don't (or choose not to) see in the environment and alludes to an archeological find; a sense of the past revealed in our present.

'Catching Words' proposal for A.L.L 2015

Whilst walking I find that thoughts and ideas meander through my mind and then in the next moment can come into sharp focus, even whilst observing the physical environment I'm in.
This process of moving from one reality to another is one which Wordsworth would have recognised as vital to his own creative process, and the act of 'catching words' for his poems.
My proposal for Art language Location 2015' gives the viewer a way of exploring these notions of reality and creativity that Wordsworth would have experienced.

'Catching Words'© N.Gear 2015

Working on an idea for www.artlanguagelocation.org/all2015-callout/  using the oak galls I've collected whilst walking in Coxmoor woods. 
Wordsworth the poet used oak gall ink when writing which I'm alluding to in using the galls for this idea.
The galls are set to 'float' on wire, with words written on to be metaphorically 'caught' and used creatively as if Wordsworth pacing up and down on his top terrace at Dove Cottage in the Lake District.

'Thynge' N.Gear 2015

The artist Nelson Duplexcito talks of the resistant image and this new work considers that notion, where what you see is not easily deciphered. Made up of 14 individual A2 prints montaged together looking at the evidence of our lives and impact within the liminal landscape.

'[Out Of Play]' N.Gear 2015

My work into the 'Eye' image is complete and is preoccupied with ideas around Phenomenology ,how do we see the world and what's our understanding of reality?
In addition Agnes Varda the Film Director said of her work 'I always wanted to make people see deeply. I don't want to show things, but to give people the desire to see'.

Continuing with collecting material whilst I walk I'm exploring our notions of 'seeing' through the theme of the 'Eye'
The debris is transformed and then taken back to the landscape from where it's been 'found' to be photographed in situ'.
The image includes elements of iconography such as the oak galls, which originally were used to make ink, and allude to the process of mark making. 

'Bound together in step' N.Gear 2014

Two faces; one Wordsworths' original life mask juxtaposed against the 'Face of Coxmoor' - a mask composed of material collected whilst walking Coxmoor Woods, now showing at St Johns' Library in Cambridge until the 31st of October 2014.

If you visit ask the Porter at St Johns' to see the exhibition in the Library, and you'll be let in for free!

St John's College 'New' Library

'Blue Balloon [I wandered lonely as a cloud]' N.Gear © 2014
Text panel & Video.

The Art Language Location exhibition starts 15th October 2014 and this work will be on display at St Johns college library Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm each day, finishing on 31st October.

'The Face of Coxmoor' drawing one N.Gear 2014

My sculpted face using found materials has been taken back into the woods where I walk and photographed amongst the debris left to rot in the undergrowth.
I've been working on the printed photo by drawing into the surface, playing with notions of memory, reality, unreality, and adding another layer of life into the work.
I plan to do an A2 size version, to be part the ALL Exhibition at St Johns College Library Cambridge later in October 2104.