KIRA FREIJE’S ‘RIVER BY NIGHT’ EXHIBITION IS AT KESTLE BARTON GALLERY BETWEEN SUNDAY 18 JUNE AND SUNDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2023. EXPECT WONDERFULLY SURREAL METAL AND FABRIC SCULPTURES BY THE TALENTED ARTIST…
London artist Kira Freije employs fabric, metal and found materials into her sculpture work. What she creates can be described as both surreal and exaggerated. Her works allow the viewer to think, to create new narratives and to look at the world in a different way.
The artist’s ‘river by night’ exhibition is at Kestle Barton’s gallery, in Manaccan near Helston, between Saturday 18 June and Sunday 3 September 2023. It features new and recent sculptural work that ‘coalesces figurative, assemblage and functional forms’ while it also, say the curators, ‘combines industrial metalworking and glass-blowing techniques’.
A spokesperson for the exhibition says: “It brings together elements that recur in Freije’s work – the human presence, narrative fragments,
evocation of time and place, and references to interior states and to the built and natural worlds.”
The spokesperson adds: “As we usually have openings on a Saturday, it is worth noting that this one is taking place on a Sunday instead. And it is Father’s Day too.”
Freije lives and creates her art in London. She studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford and the Royal Academy Schools. She has previously worked with local blacksmiths in Sussex, acquiring metalwork skills such as cold forming and sand casting. This is her first solo exhibition.
Kestle Barton, on the other hand, is an ancient Cornish farmstead next the Helford River. One of its barns became its fabulous gallery in 2010, which opens between April and late October every year. It’s open between Tuesdays and Sundays (as well as Bank Holidays) each week and between 10.30am and 5pm each day.