Michael Sandle Grit in the Oyster and Ideas Never Completed
Grit in Oyster and Ideas Never Completed. Exhibition catalogue with an essay by Cian Quayle. Michael Sandle – Monumental Rage, ed. Peter Boughton with Jon Wood, John McEwen, and Thomas Hirsch. Chester: Grosvenor Museum and Art Gallery & University of Chester.
In 2017, at the suggestion of Michael Sandle RA, Quayle was invited by Keeper of Art at the Grosvenor Museum, Peter Boughton to contribute a book chapter for a catalogue of the exhibition Monumental Rage May 19 – October 1, 2018 at the Grosvenor Museum. This exhibition had previously been exhibited at Flowers East, Time Transition, Dissent (2016). Sandle’s work is held in major collections worldwide including Tate Britain. The essay was based on an interview and research into Michael Sandle’s sketchbooks from 1962 onwards.
This study provided the opportunity to explore the subjects and themes, which have informed Sandle’s pactice over the last sixty years. The interview and related photographs, which accompany the essay investigated the relationships between drawing as a process of thought and practice, and its connection with day-to-day (lived) experience, social and political events, the imagination and dream time. The interrelationship of these notions forged connections with the works in the exhibition, and their context and this specifically in relation to concepts of home, embodied practice and events which have shaped the course of history over the last century to the present day.
Sandle’s exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum was facilitated by my introduction to Peter Boughton, which also led to the Museum’s acquisition of two of Sandle’s etchings and a sculpture for their permanent collection. Flowers East curator Isabel Bingley described the significance of the publication as follows: ‘The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated book. Essays by John McEwen, Dr Cian Quayle, Dr Jon Wood and Dr Thomas Hirsch are followed by a full catalogue of the exhibits and complete listings of Michael Sandle’s exhibitions, commissions, awards, public collections and publications. The book offers a wealth of contextual information on the artist and his work, provides a permanent record of the exhibition, and forms a major reference work of lasting value.’
Flowers East exhibition and catalogue notice:
https://www.flowersgallery.com/news/717-michael-sandle-monumental-rage/