Cloe Sparrow

Ceramic tablets, embossed with sea creatures. Strung together by assorted pieces of flotsam and jetsam from our beaches. Snatches of verse, reflections on the strange hinterland of sand and foam. Cloe Sparrow’s first solo exhibition ‘Pages of my Mind’ delivers memorable images from our shorelines.

As a lover of the sea – not so much the neon-lit, attention-grabbing cavalcade of our beach resorts, more the sound of nature and the sense of solitude – this resonated strongly with me. Two substantial exhibits on the first floor of Durham’s Dead Dog Gallery evoke much of what makes the coast special. The combination of word and image, of driftwood and seaglass, bound together by discarded fishing tackle or wave-beaten rope, carries echoes of so much of the history of the written word. It’s not fanciful to see a hint of the illuminated manuscripts that seared Northumbria into the cultural vanguard of the early Middle Ages; those books, too, were crafted and bound beside the waters.

Beyond those stand-outs, Cloe’s drawings strip nature to its essentials. There’s a Lowry-esque simplicity to some of her seascapes; monochrome lines, wavy in the foreground and straightening to the horizon, recall the plain grey maritime scenes he painted from the seafronts in Sunderland or Berwick. On a wall, video footage of the sea is overlaid with marker pens, turning nature into art. A lighthouse is a recurrent motif, a sombre blue wash the sole concession to colour.

It can all sound a little austere, but ‘Pages of my Mind’ proves oddly uplifting. This isn’t the saucy postcard school of seaside art. It’s the realm of vast skies, the churning power of an endless expanse of water, the call of the gulls and the clatter of masts as the wind rattles ropes on a moored sailing boat. It’s a world in which, in Cloe’s words: “I am nothing and a part of everything.” And the effect on the viewer is similar to a walk along a deserted beach. It’s restorative, meditative, calming – perhaps incongruous amid the hubbub of a busy college.

But it’s not just art for art’s sake. Cloe’s work, built around ideas of journaling and recording, lend itself to concepts of mindfulness. Alongside the Dead Dog Gallery show, the artist ran a six-week course in journaling and bookbinding. The results of that course steadily filled the space. As well as creating art the idea was to tie into mental health, exploring how creativity can help restore calm.

Cloe’s workshops – which are as likely to take place in community centres or shops as in a college – draw heavily on nature. The emphasis is on free creativity, stepping away from the task-led ‘pass-or-fail’ approach that made school art lessons such a trial for many of us. From creating marbled paper to binding together work into personal, mindful journeys, from producing prints to writing poetry, regular participants explore a wide range of techniques and create a striking range of their own art.

Pages of my mind, Cloe Sparrow’s exhibition, continues at Dead Dog Gallery in Durham until Friday, Dec. 13. Entry is free, but opening hours are limited to Thursdays and Fridays, 10-4.

Dead Dog Gallery is the display space attached to Durham Sixth Form College. For too long, the town has lacked a permanent exhibition space and the college has stepped up to help fill that gap. Earlier in the year, it was home to a hugely successful project about Durham Ice Rink, which brought together artist Lewis Hobson and filmmaker Carl Joyce. All three have featured in earlier articles here on Vocal.