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Rachael Clewlow: My paths are my ideas of imagination

21 October – 16 December 2017

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Newcastle-based artist Rachael Clewlow creates rigorous and detailed recordings of her everyday movements. Meticulously documenting this mass of information in diaries, this abstract record of the banal to the unexpected becomes a form of trace from which Clewlow begins to construct paintings and prints.

For her first solo exhibition, Clewlow created a new series of paintings focusing on a set of specific pre-defined walks in Rochdale, Newcastle and London. Each walk represented a performative journey made to explore place through the demands of the related paintings. Alternative and at times absurd, her ideas about exploring the world merge with her interest in investigating her own language of painting and abstraction.

Clewlow’s most recently completed group of paintings explored the industrial heritage of the area around Rochdale. Man Made Waterways, 91.9 Miles Walked, Rochdale (2017) saw her crossing the Pennine Hills over five days in a walk linking a large network of reservoirs, canals and waterways. In this body of work, Clewlow was interested specifically in establishing a new route that honours these critical historic monuments at the heart of the areas growth.