Crypt Gallery

Next at The Crypt is Starfield, an exhibition of painted star maps across the milky way. "The painted starmaps represent the stars coloured according to their spectral class in the OBAFGKM system published by Annie Jump Cannon in 1901. Spectral class is based on an analysis of the absorption and emission lines created by gases in the star's atmosphere and revealed when the light from an individual star is focused through a prism. It is a good indication of the temperature and predominant colour of radiated light. In very hot B and O types (10,000°K to 60,000°K) the spectrum is weighted in favour of ultra-violet and blue and with little radiation in the red. In cool M and K types (2,700°K to 5,200°K) the spectrum is loaded at the red end with little radiation in the blue. From G to A (5,400°K to 9,900°K) there is significant radiation across the whole visible spectrum and while the measured radiation peaks in this or that part of the spectrum, any perceived colour can depend on colour contrast effects with neighbouring stars. Under a dark sky only a handful of the brightest stars appear coloured to the naked eye. Vision at night is mostly done by monochrome seeing rod cells, light and dark. At full stretch, night vision, they are about 16 times more sensitive to light than the colour seeing cone cells. It needs a bright source of light for the perception of colour and, in naked eye seeing, most stars are too faint to crossthe threshold of light into colour. The easiest stars to see coloured are very bright stars towards the red end of the spectrum, Betelgeuse, Arcturus, Antares. Stars appear in clumps of interstellar gas that coalesce into a clusters of stars, of which the Pleaides star cluster is a famous example. These groupings are held together by gravity attraction but drift apart. When stars are coloured up on maps according to spectral class some number of the colour groupings are real, genuine families of stars born together, while other groupings are assembled by chance. The scatter patterns remind me of wild flowers." - John Cox 16th — 22nd August Friday 16th, 11 — 4pm Saturday 17th, 11 — 4.30pm Monday 19th - Wednesday 21st, 11 — 4pm Thursday 22nd 11 — 1pm Closed Sundays. Free admission.

Where the Tree Meets the Cross brings the work of two artists, Androulla Michael and Iuliana Gavril together in their shared reverence for those most unnoticed - unseen - instances of everyday life. Yet, their capturing in drawing and photography exposes profound, enduring symbols: the cross and the tree. Androulla Michael’s crosses pass into and out of form through a wall or tree, in the cracks of pavements, in the overlaying of clouds on the infinite blue, in the caress of window mullion and muntin by draperies, in the markings of roads and sky, in the nudge of ordinary objects given to banal surfaces. Once noted, in the mastery of timing, the crosses celebrate light as form-giving, shadow as surreptitious texture and space as life-affirming. Part of knowing the beauty of the world, part of re-finding the salvific and affirmative self in a tumultuous time space, Androulla Michael’s evanescent crosses will inevitably and ultimately point to the biblical trees: the tree of life, the tree of knowledge, and the tree as the Christian imagery for the cross. In this specific reference, the ephemeral sighting of crosses receives their immutability. Iuliana Gavril's drawing of trees (Arborium Series) gives Androulla Michael’s Cross Series sufficient but not necessarily contextual materiality, anchoring the simple intersecting of lines, often perpendicularly, in the immutable beauty of the natural world. The trees, at once weightless and resplendent, annul the disruptive feature of crosses, repositing the beauty of the world. Only when cross-sighting is viewed in proximity of trees, its life-affirming and altogether humbling attribute is magnified.  You can find the work of Androulla Michael and Iuliana Gavril in the Crypt from July 30 - August 3 from 10:00-16:00. July 30th — August 3rd, 10 — 4pm Private View - 30th July, 4 — 6pm Closed Mondays & Sundays. Free admission.