Rosie Musgrave carved her first
piece of stone in her early 20s. She was apprenticed variously
with sculptors and then studied figurative sculpture in
clay, wood and stone at Sir John Cass and City & Guilds
Art Schools in London.
With her young family she ran a smallholding in Cornwall
and on moving to Devon worked in complementary health.
Her practice as a somatic therapist together with an early
training as a physiotherapist and her employment at the
Social Care Unit in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields,
Trafalgar Square, have informed her work.
The quality of form, the surface tension between form
and space, light and shadow and the sense of touch and
of relationship are all important to her.
In the last ten years she has returned to full-time
stone carving and lives and works on Dartmoor in Devon.
"Many of my earliest memories are of being amongst
mountains and rocks, of collecting stones in my pockets.
I have always been drawn to the beauty and presence
of this ancient material that has helped to shape
our landscape. Much of the limestone that I carve
was laid down in the Jurassic age, at least 140 million
years ago.
I cut stone mostly by hand with hammers, chisels,
rasps and abrasives, exploring ways to honour its
innate sense of gravity and stillness while still
expressing energy and movement within the carved form.
It is often only when a piece is nearly finished that
its sensuality is revealed: the stone unveils its
secrets with shell forms, veins of colour fossilised
within the substance of time.
I carve stone as an invitation to touch. I believe
that the relevance of touch-stones is increasingly
important in this visual age. Exploring their changing
temperatures, textures, forms and spaces not only
offers new landscapes of discovery but also a sense
of being an infinitesimally small part of a much greater
whole."
SELECTED RECENT EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS
2011:Buckfast Abbey, Devon
2011: Moncrieff-Bray Gallery Autumn Exhibition, Petworth, Sussex
2011: Public Commission to carve The Three Guardians for Leechwell Garden, Totnes, Devon.
2010: The Garden Gallery, Stockbridge, Hampshire
2010: ; On Form, Asthall Manor, Oxfordshire
2010: Ludlow Open Summer Exhibition, Shropshire
2010: Devon Open Studios
2009: St. Wilfrid's Hospice Open Art Competition, Pallant House, Chichester
2009: Delamore House, Cornwood, Devon - Early Summer Exhibition
2009: Fresh Air 2009, Quenington, Gloucestershire
2009: Artspaces
2009: Brighton Art Fair
2009: SouthWest Sculptors at Dartington
2009 Fairfields Art Centre, Basingstoke - Women's Art Show
2008-9 Coombe Gallery, Dartmouth, Devon
2008 Installation of 'Tsunami Noni' into the gardens of Coughton Court, Warwickshire
2008 SouthWest Sculptors at the Dartington Gallery, Dartington Estate, Devon & at the Arial Centre, Totnes, Devon (group shows)
2008 Millstream Sculpture Garden, Bishopstrow, Wiltshire (group show)
2008 Delamore House, Cornwood. Devon - Early Summer Exhibition (group show)
2007-2008: ‘The Three Gunas’ Triptych: South Wing, Sharpham House, Ashprington, Devon: a submission for the ACE Award for Art in a Religious Context
2007: Delamore Gallery Winter Show
2007: Artmill Gallery, Plymouth, Devon
2007: The Brownston Gallery, Modbury, Devon
2007: Quartz Arts Festival, Queen’s College, Taunton, Somerset (group show)
2007: SouthWest Sculptors at the Dartington Gallery, Dartington Estate, Devon (group show)
2007: Devon Open Studios
2007: Millstream Sculpture Garden, Bishopstrow, Wiltshire (4 man show)
2007: Delamore House, Cornwood, Devon – Early Summer Exhibition (group show)
2006-2007: ‘Tsunami Noni’ on Tour: Cartmel Priory, Hexham Abbey, Exeter, Leicester, Lincoln and Canterbury Cathedrals
2007: Royal West of England Academy: Open Sculpture Exhibition (group show)
2006-2007: The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle upon Tyne
2006: SouthWest Sculptors – Exhibition with members of Sculpture Bretagne at the Ariel Centre, Totnes, Devon
2006: Beaford Arts – Art at the Red House, Exeter, Devon (4 man show)
2005: “Emergence”: Dartington Estate, Devon as part of ‘Arts in Process’, Dartington College of Arts (4 man show)
2005: As a member of SouthWest Sculptors, exhibition at Landivisiau, France at the invitation of Sculpture Bretagne
2005: BlindArt Inaugural Open Exhibition, ‘Sense and Sensuality’ at the Royal College of Art, London
2005: The Coombe Gallery, Fosse Street, Dartmouth, Devon
AWARDS
One of 20 Devon artists selected to promote Visual Arts and Rural Businesses in the region 2007
Devon Artsculture Funding 2007:
South West Academy Summer Open Exhibition Briane Bearne Memorial prize 2002
BIBLIOGRAPHY
'Floating this Boat of Stone': a Colloquy on the making of Tsunami Noni - Edited by Philip Kuhn, Itinerant Press 2008 (ISBN 978-1-906322-03-8)
BBC Radio Devon - 'The Review' with Jo Loosemore: Conversation between Two Sculptors 2008
'Tsunami Noni' Tour and Installation: BBC News. BBC Radio Devon. Church Times. Local Press articles
Mid Devon Advertiser: feature article 2006 (April)
Devon Life Magazine: feature article 2004 (March)
MEMBERSHIP OF GROUP/ PROFESSIONAL BODIES
Royal British Society of Sculptors
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