Hartlepool artist Johanna Bolton is part of Royal Society of Sculptors Northern Spring Exhibition

Taking part in the show will be Hartlepool based artist Johanna Bolton who contributes metal worked sculptures made during her prestigious residency at Benson Sedgwick fabricators as part of the Gilbert Bayes Award from the RSS.

The exhibition is titled Material Truths – Exploring the Substance of Sculpture.

Curators Paul Bonomini, Sally Gorham, and Rob Moore said: "The materiality of a sculpture affects and impacts the viewer’s experience and engagement with its presence. The artist’s ideas, purpose, contextual backstory and expression is held in its form, its matter and the space it occupies."

Taking inspiration from the words of renowned Yorkshire sculptor Henry Moore who wrote: “Every material has its own individual qualities. It is only when the sculptor works direct, when there is an active relationship with his material, that the material can take itspart in the shaping of an idea”.

Johanna says her metal work is not just an object to look at - she used them in a performance when they were first shown in public last year.

The performance, titled "Return to Dust", used the pieces like giant dust balls to be swept up with a broom.

The sweeping makes a church bell sound, taken together as a comment on the drudgery of housework and the finality of death and dust!

Johanna Bolton is a visual artist working across sculpture, installation, photography and performance.

Since graduating from Chelsea College in 2014, she has become a recipient of the Gilbert Bayes Award from the Royal Society of Sculptors, the 2022 Benson Sedgwick residency and was shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries and the Ingram Prize 2022.

She has exhibited in the UK and internationally, including a solo show at London South Bank University and exhibitions at Gerlesborgs Konsthall, in Sweden, and Edicola Spoleto / MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, Italy.