The central focus of this exhibition is studio-based drawing by artist Chloe Vallance. Step. Float. Fly has been formed through a warm and sometimes mysterious observation of people and animals as they engage within everyday activities and moments of contemplation. The definition of contemplation in Chloe’s artwork is ‘a long loving look.’ Often the people are seen to be looking into the middle distance, pausing or walking, each on their own journey.

This exhibition includes 40 small finely detailed colour pencil drawings on plywood and colour swatches. The ideas surrounding this body of work are composed in three movements of the imagination – Step. Float. Fly – from which this exhibition takes its title. Each artwork considers these movements through small-scale drawings of people and animals, stepping, floating, and flying. Playing with the shadows made by the figures and forms, a connection is bridged between the colour pencil and the plywood. The playful placement of shadows made by figures is also echoed in the tiny colour pencil drawings on colour swatches.

A sense of quiet spaciousness and gentle wonder resonates between the drawings alongside a strong solid presence. The plywood material lends itself to this feeling of solidity and space. Whilst the warmth of the wood grain surface, seems to become an open field, or an inner landscape, or an expanse of water. The people and animals in Chloe’s drawings almost step, float, fly into the spacious plywood surface.