EXHBITION: Stone Ages – Alex Murdin & Andrew Stacey featuring students of South Dartmoor Community College
Friday 24th April – 4th May, Ashburton Arts Centre, open during centre events.
On Dartmoor, stone is presence that underlies everything you see, erupting through the thin layer of earth and grass into ice-carved tors, stubbornly cloaking hillsides with fields of clitter that quietly resist the storms. It is raised up momentarily into walls, prisons and sacred places but always speaks to us of its own deep time. Stone Ages is a meditation on stone and landscape by two Dartmoor artists, Alex Murdin and Andrew Stacey, showing drawings, prints, paintings and work in progress.
Environmental artist Alex Murdin has always been concerned with breaking down the nature / culture divide, working on public projects with people, flora and fauna. In 2022, during covid, he decided to go back to the beginning and, armed with only pencil and pen, focus on the the geology and archaeology of Dartmoor where he lives – asking himself how to live a life with stone. Alex is co-author of Rock Idols (2025) an illustrated guide to Dartmoor’s tors.
Artist Andrew Stacey is well known for his large scale mural paintings in places like Exeter. He was also formerly public art advisor to Dartmoor National Park so is no stranger to many faces and people of the moors. In his latest artworks, created in his Ashburton studio, he draws and paints Dartmoor as an elemental landscape full of spirits, myth and ritual and the vibrant geological forces that shake and shape the land.
Andy and Alex will be joined by art students from South Dartmoor Community College’s Create Arts group who will present a collaborative body of work inspired by the wild landscapes of Dartmoor. Exploring the enduring presence of the tors, students have experimented with layered processes to investigate mark making, light and colour. Influenced by shifting atmospheres and ancient surroundings, these acrylic responses capture both the physical landscape and its sense of history, following a recent shared visit to Dartmoor.
Images: featured image and top – Alex Murdin, Dartmoor stones: bottom – Andrew Stacey, Dawlish Warren (courtesy the artist & Art UK)