Exhibitions / Group

Jammyboree

Bloc Projects, Sheffield
6–15 March 2025

Exhibition Text

Jammyboree celebrated the breadth of contemporary painting and sculpture being produced by artists based in Sheffield. Curated by Sean Williams and Kate Jacob, the exhibition brought together the work of thirty artists, reflecting the diversity of approaches and the strength of the city's contemporary visual arts community.

Writing before the exhibition opened, Sean Williams described Jammyboree as “an outright celebration of contemporary painting and sculpture by artists based in Sheffield,” adding, “I am keen to show the great breadth of contemporary art-making, particularly within the city of Sheffield. It is a thriving scene at the moment and the more opportunities to demonstrate it the better.”

Participating Artists

Jammyboree included work by Richard Bartle, Stu Burke, Stephen Carley, Andy Cropper, Bryan Eccleshall, Paul Evans, Ranaa Farooq, Loukas Georgiou, Peter Griffiths, Thomas Griffiths, Ruth Heaton, Kate Jacob, Richard Johnson, David Jones, Rita Kaisen, Jack Kettlewell, Simon Le Ruez, Lianne Mellor, Janie Moore, Mikk Murray, David Orme, Trish O'Shea, Conor Rogers, Jenny Sutton, Stephen Todd, Kate Whateley, Joanna Whittle, Myfanwy Williams, Sean Williams and Lynne Wixon.

Curated by Sean Williams and Kate Jacob.

Exhibited Artwork

Richard Bartle exhibited Hoopla (2024), a painting from the Unearthed series.

The painting developed from archaeological fieldwalking in Lincolnshire and depicts a group of Bronze Age and Celtic copper-alloy rings alongside heavily corroded iron nails recovered from cultivated farmland. Rather than illustrating archaeological finds, the work examines how objects carry evidence of time, landscape and human activity. Through repeated layers of painting, sanding and glazing, Bartle reconstructs the surfaces of the artefacts, allowing weathered patinas and traces of manufacture, use and burial to emerge gradually through the painting process.

Selected for Jammyboree, Hoopla demonstrated the growing prominence of Bartle's archaeological paintings within a wider contemporary art context. Alongside painting and sculpture by artists from across Sheffield, the work reflected his continuing exploration of material culture, landscape and the physical evidence of human history.

Installation Views

Selected Artwork

Legacy

Jammyboree brought together a broad cross-section of Sheffield's contemporary artists at a moment when the city's visual arts community was particularly active and collaborative. For Richard Bartle, the exhibition marked another public presentation of the Unearthed series beyond its archaeological origins, placing paintings developed through fieldwalking and material research within a wider contemporary art context. The exhibition reinforced the continuing dialogue between archaeology, painting and sculpture that has become central to Bartle's recent practice.

Image Credits

Installation photographs by Sean Williams.