John Holt, one of the artists at Sculpture Lounge has been invited by the management team at Creswell Crags Museum and Prehistoric Gorge to become its “Artist in Residence”.
Creswell Crags is an internationally significant limestone gorge honeycombed with caves that provides a fascinating glimpse of life rock art in Britain. The cliffs in the ravine contain several caves that were occupied during the last ice age, between around 43,000 and 10,000 years ago. Its caves contain the northernmost cave art in Europe. Hundreds of protective marks, also known as Witches Marks, have also been discovered at Creswell Crags. This is believed to be the largest collection ever found in the UK.
Academic and TV presenter, Professor Ronald Hutton, an authority on folklore, said:
“Creswell Crags has already amazed the twenty-first century with its revelations of Palaeolithic designs. Now it does so again with a fresh one of medieval and early modern ritual protection marks on a huge scale, making a very important contribution, at a stroke, to one of the most significant current areas of new scholarly research.”
John will make a series of new ceramic sculptures and a series of large drawings inspired by the cave art and the landscape of Creswell and the Witches Marks found in the caves at Creswell which will be exhibited alongside the historical finds from the caves at the Study Centre.
He will also conduct workshops and give a series of online talks on “The Power of Symbolism”. This work will all be made in his studio at The Sculpture Lounge.
