Rosie Musgrave - Profile
Rosie Musgrave - Stone Carver Rosie Musgrave - Stone Carver Rosie Musgrave - Stone Carver Rosie Musgrave - Stone Carver
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."

Rosie Musgrave’s work continues to be featured in magazines and shown at galleries and exhibitions and held in various private collections.


SELECTED RECENT EXHIBITIONS AND PROJECTS

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
SouthWest Sculptors


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