A new exhibition at The Atkinson explores the decades long career of two artists – father and son who work primarily in the public realm but also explore their own interests and passions in steel, paper and music.
Brian Fell is a maker, first and foremost with interests spanning architecture, engineering, nature and music. Born in Liverpool and now working in a studio in Yorkshire Sculpture Park, he moves easily between abstraction and figuration, believing that the two disciplines feed one another, bringing distinct but related intellectual artistic challenges.
He is best known for his landmark figurative public sculpture with a strong sense of place, sited across the UK. However, his abstract compositions in steel and on paper are the foundation of everything he has done. In 2011 his son, George Fell began working in partnership with him as his studio assistant on major commissions and is now securing and leading his own and joint projects. A skilled artist metalworker, his father’s influence is evident in his hands-on approach and his love for the physicality of the craft.
Always Something New highlights some of their key commissions from the past four decades, celebrating the breadth and ambition of Brian and George’s practice – both collaboratively and individually. Spanning public art and personal explorations, the exhibition reveals a partnership rooted in continual making and creative curiosity.
The show will present an insight into the many ways that Brian and George work with steel ,demonstrating through their sculptures, photography and video of their work in the studio, its remarkable qualities as an artistic material and the range of skills, working methods and approaches that they have developed individually and together to bring it to life.
Photographs, archival material, maquettes and sculptures will offer an insight into how this expertise has been employed in the creation of some of Brian’s key commissions and the pieces that he and George have made. His early work in Southport, the Leviathan on the Barbican in Plymouth, the Merchant Seaman’s Memorial in Cardiff, Skyhooks in Manchester, the HaHa Bridge at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park will feature alongside projects they’ve worked on together such as the Spearfisherman in Jersey, the herd of Deer in Bedale and the Prescot Shakespeare Sculpture Trail.
Finally, there will be the chance to experience the creative work the two artists do for themselves in the downtime between commissions, showcasing Brian’s abstract work using paper and steel and George’s music, revealing the creative impulses that exist beyond the commissioned work and continue to inform their creative lives.
Visit their exhibition page here.