A collection of work by mixed media artist Camilla Dixon, which traces the legacy of environmental and social activism in her work back to the time of Hepworth and Heron.
Barbara Hepworth and Patrick Heron were towering figures in 20th century British art and amongst the most influential members of the St Ives art colony in its heyday. Yet, Hepworth and Heron were true pioneers in another sense too. They both fought to protect St Ives and West Penwith from overdevelopment and misuse, recognising the importance and fragility of the coastline, moorland, and the historic fishing and mining communities which dotted the rough-hewn, windswept peninsula.
Best known for their sculpture and painting respectively, Hepworth and Heron campaigned against developers, prospectors, councils and even the Ministry of Defence. Time and time again they argued that this unique place – in which ancient landscapes, back-breaking human toil, and the creative spirit all coalesced – should not be allowed to be concreted over, packaged up, and sold off.
‘Hollow Oval’ by Barbara Hepworth will be on display as part of Original Rebels
Camilla Dixon is an artist, tutor, and lecturer, whose work is increasingly connected to her environmental activism. She led an influential campaign against second-home ownership, highlighting the extent to which local people have been displaced by tourism and high rates of unoccupied properties in places like St Ives and Padstow.
‘A Figure in the Landscape’ by Camilla Dixon
Original Rebels links that defiant spirit back to earlier iterations and personalities of this famously creative Cornish outpost. For example, in A Figure in the Landscape Dixon shows how Barbara Hepworth stopped part of the town being made into a car park, and Foresight is a collage of Fore Street, where Hepworth once sat down to prevent the cobbles being torn up and replaced with tarmac.
Disruption recalls how Patrick Heron successfully campaigned against the Penwith Moors being used as a training ground for helicopter pilots – and was treated to noisy manoeuvres close to his house, Eagle’s Nest, as a result. And, in a stoneware map called Protected Penwith made in collaboration with ceramicist Sacha Lewis, the areas Heron explicitly had protected through what Dixon calls his “unrelenting commitment to wild West Penwith” are shown in bold red.
As part of the exhibition, Nick Whitworth’s short film, Original Rebels will be shown, in which Dixon meets people who knew Hepworth and Heron and uncovers the true extent of their activism, and how it impacted their work. As she says, “despite numerous books celebrating these two giants of British Modernism, this aspect of their legacy lives on almost only through local word of mouth, and in the memory of those who knew them and were there at the time.”
Original Rebels seeks to write that legacy firmly back into the history books, and show how artists of the present day are taking up Hepworth and Heron’s mantle.