Rachael Plummer exhibits at Lewes gallery

Her exhibition runs from May 28-June 5 and is entitled animal/mineral.

Rachael said: “This collection of work evolved through exploring ways we interconnect – with the environment, other species, time, each other… how we can forget and become exiled.

"It’s also about reconnecting, remembering.

“My studio is in the middle of traffic so first and last light I walk onto the edge of the Downs to fill up with air, light, leaves, perspective.

"Looking down I started seeing the forms in flints, sinuous shapes of creatures formed by time and seas and suggestive of animals, birds, bears, humans and, thanks to a good friend, noticed those shaped and struck by early human hands.

“Back in the studio their forms became part of the paintings, also having a second or third life as tools, scraping, grinding and incising into the surface of the paint and grounds.

"I try to use walnut linseed oils with ground pigments. In a way it became another kind of belonging to time and this place.

“I’ve exhibited regularly in Lewes and occasionally in London.

"But this is my first solo show for five years.

"It felt important to risk time, let these ideas evolve. As well as these explorations I’m in new territories of colour, form, figures. There are numerous peoples, creatures, landscapes past and very present to be grateful to.

“I hope I can bring some of the spring, energy, geology, history, maybe even some humanity into the work and onto the walls of the gallery to stay, that something of these marks and colours translates the experience, brings it home.

"Expect mineral inclusions, plant matters, animal presences… and a welcome.”

The Star Brewery Gallery visual arts exhibition space, first established as the Star Gallery in the late 1980s and later known as the Hop Gallery, has a history of hosting exhibitions by local, regional, national and international artists and of showcasing both established artists and up-and-coming artists, photographers and makers.