Surface Tension

Dates: 25 June – 26 July 2026

Where: Robinwood Mill

Artists: Kelly Chorpening and Kate Atkin

Surface Tension, our inaugural exhibition as a community interest company, presents new drawing work by Nevada based artist Kelly Chorpening, and artist Kate Atkin, a studio holder at Robinwood Mill.

Ideas for the exhibition emerged from Kelly’s visit to 9a in 2025, followed by a long walk across the moors. The new work emerged in relation to walking, Kelly walking the desert landscapes of Nevada and Kate criss-crossing the moorland of a post-industrial Todmorden Valley.

At points in the process, walking and making/drawing came together. This practice of ‘drawing in the field’ echoes the history of recording methods once central to disciplines like geography and archaeology. Kelly and Kate used techniques of embossing and frottage to explore relationships between the paper’s surface and surfaces they encountered while walking. Their process was a back-and-forth between landscape and studio, investigating materials, techniques and effects – the kind of surfaces they produced.

Taking inspiration from digital images from Turner’s late eighteenth-century sketchbooks that somehow eluded attempts at digital reproduction, Kelly and Kate’s practice explores the complexity and inherent tension of recording practices at a point in time where surface is ubiquitous, behind a screen and at our fingertips. 

Artist and contributors 

Professor Kelly Chorpening, artist, writer and educator based in Nevada California. Kelly is currently Chair of the Department of Art, Art History & Design at the University of Nevada, Reno. Kelly visited the Calder Valley in 2025, at the invitation of 9a and Todmorden based artist Kate Atkin. Kate and Kelly have previously exhibited work in the gallery. Kelly had a piece in the 2022 group show Chronicles by Phantom Limn, and Kate presented a solo show in 2023, Mute Objects. Kate re-located to Todmorden following her solo show and has a studio at Robinwood Mill. 

We’re also very pleased to have a written piece by Isabel Seligman, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at The British Museum. Isabel’s piece appears alongside a text by Kelly Loughlin in a folded map-like document designed by Myriam Waldbillig.