Geoff Diego Litherland in Conversation
Thursday, 21 July, 2022
Geoff Diego Litherland in conversation with Jonathan Casciani - Food by Small Food Bakery & natural wine from Wright's Wines.
Free Talk or £10 with food.
Join artist Geoff Diego Litherland and Beam Director Jonathan Casciani in conversation to discuss the artist's current exhibition 'Catching Matter' and his significant new body of work, currently on display at Beam, Nottingham.
This new body of work continues the artist's interest in using the slow, traditional materials and craft techniques of western painting to create a connection between himself and the natural environment.
In recent years (and in collaboration with his partner and weaver Angharad McLaren), Litherland has grown flax and used it to weave canvasses with highly complex woven patterns upon which to paint. Concurrent to this the artist learned to mix and use traditional lime mortars and plasters as part of various house renovation projects.
Using some of the leftover flax toe in the lime plasters to strengthen them – in the same way that animal-hair had been historically – Litherland found a tactility and necessary slowness to the processes of using these traditional materials.
The work provides an opportunity for Litherland to explore different materials – pigments, sand and lime – and their historical relationship to his locality of the Derbyshire Dales, where these materials have been extracted from the landscape for centuries.
Distorted grids are made by casting hemp nets over the wet plaster and allowing the pigments to fall onto and through them to create drifts on the surface of the work. Meteorite pigment was used to create the dark crater spots on the surfaces.
These works attempt to capture the ethereal and ephemeral qualities of that which makes up the emptiness of space. Using earth-based pigments in these compositions creates a built-in, metaphorical meaning of interconnectedness.
‘We now know that empty space is full of matter that resonates at different frequencies to solid things. There are always things out there in the ether, floating about, things falling from the sky.’
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Event Format
- Food and wine from 6.30pm onwards
- Talk at 7.30-8.15pm
- Food and wine continues until 10pm
- Exhibition open all evening
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Join us for organic and biodynamic food and drink
Following in the Italian tradition of 'Aperitivo', Beam have invited their friends and collaborators from Small Food Bakery in Nottingham to provide a selection of delicious dishes for you to help yourself to, made from local, organic and biodynamic ingredients. We'll be selecting a stellar selection of natural wines with Joel from Wrights Wines.
For those that like to eat early food will be ready from 6.30pm and will also be served after the talk finishes at 8.15.
This ticket is for both the talk and food only, there will be a pay bar on the night.
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