Brian Rice : Found Objects

Brian Rice is best known for his richly coloured and meticulously crafted abstract paintings, a legacy spanning more than six decades. Yet, since the 1960s he has quietly been gathering "interesting" scrap and discarded items; from street-market odds and ends,  archaeological fragments from farm-house diggings to scraps of unearthed metal and textiles. Most wonderfully, the discovery of a Victorian tip (once buried and now eroding through the cliffs of Lyme Regis) has offered up fascinating finds, recalibrated into sculptural collages and constructions.

 

This new exhibition brings that lesser-known work into the light. It offers the rare pleasure of looking again at things so often overlooked. More than ever we are learning to reuse and cherish objects in ways we seem to have forgotten. With Rice's lifelong habit of looking twice at the ignored, gathering and re-imagining in the only way he knows how; by making them into something you want to live with for a lifetime.

 

The exhibition is, of course, a celebration of recycling and reusing in a time when we absolutely must.

 

But it is also a reminder that meaningful forms can arise from the discarded, and that with the right eye, they become treasures.

 

The exhibition will be held at The Viewing Room in Castle Cary, Somerset, from 18th September until 7th November and will run online for the same period.