The Spaces Between

Francesca Simon                                                 8th May - 19th June 2025

The Spaces Between is a two-part exhibition of paintings and drawings by Francesca Simon at Platform A, 8th May to 19th June 2025, and at Ryedale Folk Museum, 10th May to 29th June 2025. The body of work at Platform A, monochrome apart from dashes of colour in the horizontal bars, is a development from the work at Ryedale, strongly linked through the right-angled triangle but pushing the original geometry to more graphic forms.

Francesca Simon works from a studio in the North York Moors. The organic lines and colours of the landscape have, paradoxically, led her on a journey into geometric abstraction. While her early work focussed on the topography of Yorkshire's dry-stone walls, her work in The Spaces Between is a less direct response to landscape and the architectural forms within landscape. Her particular focus in this work includes the goaf or void remaining after the collapse of the bord-and-pillar, a feature of nineteenth century ironstone mining in North Yorkshire; and the triangles observed in Indian stepwells.

Her work is an interiorisation of landscape. She has written about a filtering process, objects seen or encountered surfacing in abstract images. Now, more than ever, geometry and symmetry are essential elements of her practice; the original visual experience is condensed into reductive abstract paintings.

Goaf Works, including the paintings cross cut, sky seam and cobalt base 1and 2, are shown at Platform A. They focus on the effects of the ironstone mining process: the mining long defunct but its effects visible to the present day.

The series Check Works, mostly shown at Ryedale (apart from the diptych DOUBLE CHECK D at Platform A), are arrangements of right angled or half square triangles disrupted by horizontal bars resulting in playful, almost musical, compositions, in colours that refer to the landscape.

Francesca has shown at Platform A previously, Looking Down in 2018. The exhibition at Ryedale Folk Museum celebrates 10 years since her first exhibition there. She has paintings in various collections including The Government Art Collection, Newnham College, Cambridge and the David Ross Collection.

In 2021 Francesca began to work towards the opening of an exhibition space in a derelict tractor shed at Glaisdale Head, where she lives. Artshed Glaisdale opened in 2022 and provides a venue where artists can focus on exhibiting in a remote rural environment. The programme will resume in 2026.