semiBad

Annabelle Shelton

This is something I've had sitting around for ages — I uploaded the images shortly after I first started this site, but for one reason or another didn't manage to write about until now. During the appallingly-named Milton Keynes Big Moo festival (a great own goal for a town which is constantly associated only with our infamous bovine sculptures), we found ourselves traipsing around Milton Keynes city centre with a couple of friends from out of town. There were various displays around the place of arts and crafts from in and around the town, including a large exhibition in Middleton Hall of the work of local artists. As is often the way around these parts, the quality was wildly variable, but (for me at least) the work of Annabelle Shelton really stood out from the rest as something pretty special.

Unfortunately, my fairly copious notes on the methods and materials used by the artist to create these massive and intriguing pieces are long gone, so bear with me here — I'm working from memory. Shelton's work takes scenes of crowds — beaches, landmarks, or in the above image, one of Milton Keynes' redways clogged with people traveling to a Robbie Williams show at the Bowl — and removes the settings. Painted on vast rectangles of aluminium treated with a matt white pigment, depth and scene are implied by the negative space between people and smaller objects. In her beach scenes this often gives the impression of dreamlike, flawless white sand, the waterline made obvious by the curve of the negative space it leaves. Even in less obvious settings, such as the previous image, the groupings of people make the layout of the environment surprisingly obvious. The materials used — soft, water soluble crayons, if I remember correctly — are also surprisingly vibrant and bold thanks to the bright white of the coated aluminium base. The impression of watercolour paint on high-quality photo paper is at once familiar and daring.

Unfortunately, the images here don't do Shelton's work justice — and her own site is a breathtakingly awful example of how not to display great work — hideous design and a complete disregard for any progress on the web since 1996. If you get a chance though, you really should check out some of these paintings in person — they're worth it.

Update, February 2011: Since I wrote this in 2008, Annabelle's site has improved dramatically.