Don Soker Gallery
2180 Bryant Street Ste.205, San Francisco CA 94110 | 415.291.0966
Open Fridays & Saturdays 2 - 6 p.m. or by appointment
Gordon Senior and Eleanor Wood at Don Soker Gallery

Eleanor Wood
Boundaries 1, 2022, Boundaries 5, 2023, Boundaries 4, 2023
watercolour, pencil, oil on wax on cotton paper, 15 x 15”ea. framed

A Shared Return: Sculptural Works by Gordon Senior and Works on Paper by Eleanor Wood
5 October – 16 November 2024
Opening Reception 5 October 3-6 PM

5000 miles and 11 hours mark the distance between San Francisco and Norfolk in England, but the contrasts are far more profound. Norfolk is rural, intensively farmed, sparsely populated, and largely reclaimed from the sea. Buildings are made from local brick, flint, and even chalk. Roofs are topped with pantiles, one of the many Netherlandish influences in that part of the country.

Gordon Senior and Eleanor Wood lived in California for 14 years, and during that time exhibited frequently at Don Soker Contemporary Art. A Shared Return celebrates their first visit back and contains work made after their departure from San Francisco. A sense of place pervades the work of both artists, whose studio practices have developed and evolved in response to their new and very different environment.

Gordon Senior’s sculptural works include casts of arable crops such as barley, wheat, and oats as well as the wildflowers that traditionally grew alongside them such as corn marigolds and cornflowers. Many of them have become rare. He is preoccupied with the working landscape and his perspective on time is a very long one, measured by his observation of whole lifecycles, evolutionary shifts, and geological periods. His working methods reflect these preoccupations. Using different resin and bronze casts set within the wood or colored sand and cement forms, he employs labor-intensive methods, to lovingly polish and hone each object over a long period.

Eleanor Wood’s work explores the interaction of watercolor with a particularly absorbent paper. Bound by an insistent geometry the works evoke associations with pages, the appearance of text, and the structure of cloth. Watercolor is applied to the back of the paper in superimposed layers. The color that appears on the front forms a soft and blurred edge around the central geometric form. Often pinpricks reinforce the link between the 2 sides of the paper. Oil, wax, and diaphanous collaged elements are used within these understated and subtle works which are typically made in series. More recent work has been made on the inside of covers of early 20th-century books, and the newest works refer to the interior of aged and worn book dust covers.

Gordon Senior and Eleanor Wood at Don Soker Gallery

Eleanor Wood
Cipher series "Cranford", 2022
Early 20th century book, waxed rice paper, pencil, & oil, 11.5 x 13” framed

Gordon Senior and Eleanor Wood at Don Soker Gallery

Gordon Senior
The Working Landscape Installation, 2024
epoxy resin, wood, dimensions variable

Gordon Senior and Eleanor Wood at Don Soker Gallery

Gordon Senior
Pigs in Rotation, 2024, epoxy resin, wood, 9” dia.; Corn Flower Round, 2024, bronze, cement, sand, and stone fragments, 7.5” dia.; Oats Round, 2024, bronze, cement, sand, and stone fragments, 10” dia.