Inspirational Objects at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery

The Inspirational Objects exhibition at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery explores the simple elegance of objects. It makes subtle connections between the natural and the man-made and between 3D objects and the 2D portrayal of objects. Steve Speller’s black and white photographs sits beside Alison Milner’s colourful boxes of everyday paraphernalia.

The aim of the exhibition is to open our eyes to the small yet vital ordinary things around us which we take for granted, and to explore their beauty and function in a different frame of mind.

Inspirational Objects has previously been at Brighton, where among the photographed objects on display were a snake’s skeleton, seaweed and a Romanesco cauliflower; among the man-made objects were a gobstopper, an electromagnet and a lemon squeezer.

At the centre of the exhibition is an activity/participation area with questions and ideas, (guess what the object is, personal stories about favourite objects, fascinating facts, to name but a few), and visitors’ contributions can be added to the display with bulldog clips.

Alison Milner – whose book Inspirational Objects, a visual dictionary of simple elegant forms, was published in 2005 and accompanies the exhibition – studied furniture design at the Royal College of Art. Her work has widened to include graphic design, ceramics and teaching.

Steve Speller has been a professional photographer for 21 years, and in 2004 he had a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery entitled A Blueprint for Life, which was a series of portraits of contemporary British designers.

• Inspirational Objects is at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery from Saturday, September 25 to Wednesday, November 6. Free Admission 10am-5pm Tuesday to Saturday

(images: from the top, Steve Speller’s Aeronautical Engineering; Alison Milner’s String Theory; and Steve Speller’s Guaranteed Biodegradable)