Dovecot Studios are delighted to present Wendy Ramshaw: Rooms of Dreams this spring. As one of Britain’s leading contemporary designers, Wendy Ramshaw is renowned for her stunning jewellery and distinctive, large scale public art. This major exhibition will exhibit key pieces spanning the past fifty years of her acclaimed career – the centrepiece being her magical environment ‘Rooms of Dreams” in which her work , inspired by stories and the world of the imagination, are displayed.
The exhibition has been designed specially for Dovecot will showcase the full range of Ramshaw’s work. The critically acclaimed and influential body of work ‘Room of Dreams’, originally conceived and installed at the Scottish Gallery in 2002, is now recognised as an important milestone in the development of contemporary applied art, It will be re-envisioned for this new exhibition that opened at Somerset House in March 2012.
The centrepiece of the display is a scale model of the original Room of Dreams. As Ramshaw says, “I’m working with universal themes, building magical things which look back in time.†This part of the exhibition aims to lift the viewer from seeing jewellery purely as precious objects and transforming them into vehicles for storytelling and imagination, drawing inspiration from stories such as Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.’
“The dream is the room and every one of its individual contents is in some sense a part of a dream. A white wall is covered with frames, each of which contains a piece of jewellery, each inspired by a dream or dream-like situation…a series of stories and images waiting to be considered and discovered.†Wendy Ramshaw.
As well as the ‘Room of Dreams’ this exhibition will introduce Ramshaw’s work and achievements with key pieces selected from the 1960s to the present day, from her early fashionable and ephemeral jewellery in paper and plastic, through impressive, geometric jewels in precious metals, stone, glass and ceramic, to a series of images and maquettes representing her outstanding output of public art commissions including the latest Hyde Park Gates.