By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

LARGE scale drawings by Thongsbridge-based sculptor Jamie Frost are going on display at Mirfield, and in this week's column we are offering a chance to win a limited edition canvas print of the artist's first painting, worth £55.

As you might expect from a sculptor, Jamie's drawings have a strong sense of space, structure and modelling, and how this can be explored through subtle distortions and exaggerations.

A wide range of subjects, from flowers to optical equipment, feature in the drawings, where draughtsmanship is a top priority-the artist cites David Hockney and Claes Oldenberg as influences.

The exhibition includes a large selection of studies made using a camera obscura. Jamie has built several of these beautifully simple pieces of optical engineering that project an image on paper, allowing the artist to draw over the projection. Canaletto, the legendary Italian artist, is believed to have used a camera obscura for his Venetian landscapes.

Visitors to the West Yorkshire Print Workshop (the former Eastthorpe Gallery) where the exhibition is taking place, will be able to see one of these devices and try their hand with his centuries-old method to create a unique memento of the show.

Jamie, who trained as a sculptor at Loughborough College, has exhibited widely and the exhibition includes work made during a recent spell as artist-in-residence at the Centro d'Arte Verocchio in Tuscany.

Some of his sculptures will be on show this summer at a group exhibition at Newby Hall Gardens, Ripon.

"For me, drawing is the first step on the journey of art," Jamie says, "and an activity of which we can all claim experience and ownership. The power of making a mark cannot be underestimated, be it the simplest instinctive gesture or the most cerebral, considered line".

The Mirfield exhibition runs from March 1 to 30, and the West Yorkshire Print Workshop opens Monday to Thursday 12 to 5pm and Saturday 10am to 5pm.

To enter our competition to win the print which is titled, you see ether, icy ether, all you have to do is name the optical device which Jamie Frost has made.

Send your answer on a postcard to Jamie Frost Print Competition, Features Department, Huddersfield Examiner, PO Box A26, Huddersfield HD1 2TD. Closing date a week today.

Marsden-based photographer William Fediw has launched a series of greetings cards, with subjects selected from his large collection of land and seascape images.

Individually-produced, the 7ins by 5ins cards will be printed in low numbers. For further information contact William on 01484 847615 or view prints on his website www.fediw.com.

AVA END-Nevada, a series of new paintings, photographs, sculpture and audio installation by Alastair Neilson are on show at the University of Huddersfield Fine Art Drawing Studio, Ramsden Building, Queensgate from Tuesday, February 28 to Friday, March 3. The work follows a scholarship to the heart of Nevada.

http://ichuddersfield.icnetwork.co.uk

Back 24.02.2006.