I was so pleased to have an opportunity to have a solo exhibition at Llantarnam Grange. It is mainly drawings; an exhibition of four new and previously unseen series of drawings, together with a new tissue paper construction, The Dancing Bride.
Drawing is the initial part of the making process for me. I sit at the kitchen table with a pile of paper, pen and ink or pencil and paint and just start to draw. The drawings contain familiar characters, which can be a little disconcerting at first, but I continue to draw, sheet after sheet until these little characters, small single figures or groups, start to interact until they start to tell the next part of the ‘story’.
Sometimes a continuation or development of an idea, scenario, small drama, touched on during my last encounter with the kitchen table and a pile of paper. The Field of Souls became an exhibition at Y Gaer, Brecon consisting of delicate paper tissue heads growing from the floor of the gallery, some of the heads topped with a bird and sprouting foliage for hair. They created a space, a safe place where the ‘Soul’ can be at peace, find solace and contentment.
The Dancing Bride
Some ideas come out of the blue or the darkness. At least it seems that way. The drawings in ink on paper from 2021, were a consequence of a year or more working on ideas borne of the sad time we are experiencing.
The name Proserpina popped into my head one day as I drew at the table, came to me, the memory of something read and vaguely remembered. Proserpina or Persephone is a classic goddess, bringing us the riches of nature by her mere presence. She is a is a goddess of fertility a maker of life, who is cruelly whisked away to the underworld, trapped by Hades into a life with him in his place of darkness. But she escapes, making a pact, a deal, to spend half of the year in the Underworld, leaving this world and giving us Autumn and Winter. In her time in the Underworld I see Proserpina among the souls, she walks and talks to the faces, she meets, giving comfort and succour to those who have left us. My Proserpina strikes a deal, a compromise. Staying beneath the earth, giving us the dark time of autumn and winter while she administers to the ‘Souls’ below and bringing them re-assurance, peace, solace and kind words. These drawings in ink on paper from 2021, were a consequence of a year or more working on ideas borne of the sad time we are experiencing.
The Small Seated Figures are characters that echo the tissue paper Seated Figures in the corners of the gallery. These figures have accompanied me to three exhibitions so far and first appeared in MOMA Machynlleth a few years ago.
The Dancing Bride appeared in my home a few years ago, a little while after the tragic, destructive and cruel carnival of the invasion of Ukraine. I made her in response to a news item. A beautiful young bride taking her first dance in the arms of her husband. She is tragically disabled by a hateful conflict.
