Guide to Exploring inside the box

A short Guide to the exhibition, with original writings by Mary Yacoob, Annie Rapstoff, Guy Tarrant, Alan Franklin and Cally Trench, and images of Cally's and Tineke's work, is available to buy (price £2) from the artists.

Tineke Bruijnzeels: Circles and Cally Trench: Artists' Hands

At the heart of this exhibition were two year-long photographic projects, which the two artists undertook in parallel, posting one photograph a week each, side by side, on this website: Circles and Artists' Hands

Tineke's year-long Circles project was informed by the idea that: 'No whirlpool in a stream is alike. Apparently different and separate, but essentially the same' (Rupert Spira). A whirlpool is a temporary form, which is formed and dissolved in a stream. Tineke's project was to photograph many varieties of a circle, and show them flowing together as one colourful stream, presented as a banner.

Tineke's photographic project Circle form the previous year was presented on an oval 'table', taking the viewer on a visual journey, with no beginning and no end. For years Tineke has noticed visual links, especially in nature. She is amazed at how the wind shapes clouds, and how water shapes sand and snow. Very different things can look similar: the trunk of a tree can look like a pattern on a beach. In the built environment patterns and shapes are often inspired by the natural world. For this project, she took an element from her previous photograph and used that as the starting point for the next one.

Cally's sixty Artists' Hands are photographic portraits of artists; for Cally, hands are as expressive and individual as faces. The photographs were taken over a year, and the exhibition included seven of her own hands, photographed during lockdown when she couldn't visit other artists.

Cally and Tineke have worked together on several long-term rule-based drawing and photography art projects since 2003. By working in parallel, they provide motivation and company, and the projects take both artists to places they would not have explored alone. They choose not to discuss their work, but notice synchronicities and shared interests.

Tineke Bruijnzeels: Rule-based Drawings and Daily Projects

Tineke sets herself rules. She enjoys working with a pencil on paper within a certain size for hours, or looking for images according to a chosen form, such as a circle. She is keen to find out what happens when she repeats a single act tens or hundreds or even thousands of times.

The exhibition also featured some of Tineke's 'daily projects', where the essential rule is that the work must be completed within a day and every day for the designated period. Examples include her Daily Doodle, her One matchbox a day project, where she challenged herself to find out what she could do with an everyday object, and her A4 project, which involved using a sheet of A4 paper. These projects were presented as books, photographs and objects.

Cally Trench: Metamorphosis drawings, original board games, and short animation films

Cally's Metamorphosis drawings show hands from which feathers are sprouting. The hands are not yet wings, but can never go back to being hands. What does it feel like to be halfway between the person that you are ceasing to be and the bird that you are becoming? The rules that Cally sets herself for these drawings is that the hands are lifesize, and drawn from life, which means that her left hand is drawn with her right hand and vice versa.

These drawings of Cally's own ageing hands are in pen and ink (and sometimes watercolour) on watercolour paper. One influence is Victorian scientific textbook illustrations, giving the drawings an air of old-fashioned scientific accuracy.

Cally's original playable board games are fun, but they also explore social and economic issues, such as death, debt, and environmental change. The basic 'box' within which Cally works when inventing the games is that they should be playable, fun, short, and easily understood. One of Cally's games - Gravestones and Dry Bones - was present in the exhibition for visitors to play. Others were played by visitors at a board game afternoon on Saturday 8th October.

The exhibition also included five of Cally's very short animation films: Burial, Feet, Doors, Fossil Fish Film and The First Hard Stare of the Morning.

Exploring inside the box

The exhibition at Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot:

Tineke Bruijnzeels

Tineke Bruijnzeels's work varies from layered paintings to minimalist drawings and installations. It often arises from repeating an action, and stems from curiosity. She wants to find out what happens when she repeats a simple action, not three times, but tens or hundreds of times. Each act, however small, is part of the final work, just as every second is an essential part of a day, a year, and a century, and as every breath is part of life.

After living abroad for thirty years, Tineke now lives back in the Netherlands where she was born. She studied for a BA in Fine Art in England, where she met Cally.

Cally Trench

Cally Trench makes drawings, original board games, artists' books, and animation films. She has a MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins.