Based on the densely woven volume of nesting forms, Laura Ellen Bacon’s work transforms the craft of willow weaving into extraordinary sculpture that merges with its surroundings. Her installations are site-specific and respond to their settings by clinging to existing structures forming a dynamic relationship with their host. She was selected as a Jerwood Contemporary Maker in 2010 and this year her architectural installation ‘Split Forms’ was shown at New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire. Bacon’s powerful organic forms drew visitors into the Kitchen Garden at Chatsworth in Derbyshire in 2011. Recently at Blackwell Art & Crafts House she created ‘Exposed’ a dramatic structure spanning two floors of the exterior of this historic building.
‘I began making my early works upon dry stone walls and evolved to work within trees, riverbanks and hedges, allowing the chosen structure (be it organic or man-made) to become host. Over a decade into my work, my passions have returned to not only merging with dry stone walls, but to the powerful connections with architecture.’