About the Artwork
“Belstone Garland takes its name from the village on the north edge of Dartmoor. Having returned here many times in all seasons, the moor’s immense changeability results enticingly in the sense that it can never be entirely knowable.
I often find its bracing physicality anchors me firmly to the present, but a sense of deep time also permeates the landscape; it’s easy to stumble across a prehistoric monument or a crumbling vestige of the industrial revolution.
Using colours drawn from an autumnal moorland visit, transparent enamels are built up in layers, before the surface is slowly ground back by hand, allowing fragments of deeper strata to break through the surface and the process itself becoming something akin to an archaeological excavation.” - Imogen Hales
About the Artist
Imogen Hales is a jeweller and artist based in Edinburgh who applies traditional craft skills in contemporary and unconventional ways. Her wearable pieces engage with craft heritage as a playful and living language, exploring the role of traditions and rituals in preserving the collective memory of place.
With a focus on rural landscapes, where life was once intimately tied to the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, Imogen transposes endangered straw braiding techniques into metal wire and creates lively, painterly surfaces through the application of enamel. Via the repetitive and meditative act of braiding she attempts to momentarily build a bridge to a slower moving world, evoking an intimacy with the past.
