Charles Monkhouse

Artist statement

Charles Monkhouse is an artist working in rural and public spaces to produce temporary installations and permanent sculptures. His creative process often involves working with communities, stakeholders and other professionals to generate rich and informed outcomes that are locally distinctive and nationally significant.

His Night Stations programme of temporary installations explores the unseen landscape: the undersides of lakes and inner workings of mines; ancient track ways and modern ascents; the contours of mountains and hidden geologies that make the ever present but hidden forms of the land. Working under the cover of dark, revealing what is hidden by the light of day, Night Stations creates a new landscape: a set of visual koans that query the static gaze, and challenge the very act of seeing.

Permanent installations have been developed when working with local communities. Sites of Meaning, which marks the seventeen entrances to Middleton and Smerrill with text on stone, was developed with local parishioners. And in Companion Stones, he worked with poets and artists of the Peak to pair the ancient guide stoops of Derbyshire with contemporary sculptures.

Recently, in a BendintheRiver Gallery project, he has explored another mountain phenomena: Brocken spectres. A rare treat even for regular walkers, the Brocken spectre shows the viewer's shadow projected onto cloud or mist surrounded by an iridescent glory. This and other atmospheric images were explored in Seeing the Light at the old St John the Divine in Gainsborough.