High Art
The activity of climbing is routinely associated with the frenetic world of extreme sports programmes. Shelley Hocknell is an artist who uses her in-depth knowledge of this sport to commit to canvas what she sees and feels.
Shelley's inspiration - cultural, social and environmental - will be explored to show how they define her motivating factors and philosophy.
This observational documentary follows Shelley working on location in preparation for a forthcoming collection and explores her motivation and inspiration.
Kendal Mountain Film Festival, UK 2005
FilmId Film Festival, Birmingham, UK 2005 - Best Documentary
Shelley Hocknell
A fine art graduate in Art & Visual Culture at UWE Bristol, Shelley Hocknell is a fast emerging talent in the UK's art community.
Sighting Michelangelo and William Blake as influences, Shelley often uses mixed media – ripped paper, glue, varnish, coloured glazes, etc., to achieve the ragged textures important to express the rough crags, fissures and gullies of her native North Wales landscape.
Using the climbing fraternity as an additional source of visual stimuli she has to work quickly to capture the whole rhythm of body - using rags and hands to make marks and smear the paint, pulling it around on the surface, hitting, scratching, sanding, smoothing.
The physical process of her technique is by turns aggressive and tranquil.
Fridge Productions
Fridge Productions has produced documentaries which encompass the ascent of frozen volcanoes on the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap to the exploration of the remote regions of North East Greenland using skis and dog-sled.
Screened at festivals World-wide, including Canada, Russia and Poland. With selected output shown on BBC TV, National Geographic Channel and Sky TV.
