Well May and June are about to be pretty busy months.  I have the pleasure of participating in this years Landmark Spring Art Fair, Private View 6pm-8.30pm on the 19th of May and 10am-5pm 20&21 May. I will be exhibiting Alignment I&II as well as nine untitled precursor paintings that were part of my exploration when developing my ideas for the Alignment series.  You can print the following flyer for Private View or 2 for 1 access.



Following the Landmark Spring Art Fair.  I am excited to be shortlisted for Project 17. I will be exhibiting Allignment III, IV & V in rotation at the Gallery Elena Shchukina in Mayfair, Private View 6.30-8.30pm on the 24th of May, the exhibition runs for 10 days 25 May - 3 June.  Only twelve artists have been shortlisted for Project 17 at Gallery Elena Shchukiina and you can see the Catalogue and vote for your Favourite Artist.

Before I am able to take a mini summer break I have the annual Kingston ASC Open Studios in affiliation with KAOS. Two weekends of artists in and around the Kingston area opening our studios to you, 11am-5pm 10&11 June and 17&18 June.  Come visit, meet with us, ask us questions and look at a great variety of art from many disciplines where you can browse or buy, children and dogs are welcome! 

It’s that time of year again where the trees have lost their leaves and the evenings have drawn in. Its winter coats and woolly hats and time for reflection.

As I look back over the last twelve months I see a less hectic calendar of exhibitions than 2015. I deliberately slowed down this year. One: because, we moved house to a lovely home with a studio in the garden so that I can work from home. Two: because I was developing a new series of paintings. Coincidentally everything I have done this year has been local!

I start 2016 with my head down working hard to complete “But is it RAT?” my shortlisted installation for the Anagram exhibition at Kingston Museum. Work for this commenced in October 2015 when I sent in a proposal for the concept using photos from my first draft. I made the shortlist and started work in earnest to produce the final piece. I was really pleased to have been shortlisted and determined to execute it well.



There were times during the planning and making of this installation that I wondered: “Have I taken on more than I can handle?” It was a project that stretched me in many ways. I was working with some dangerous chemicals and there were lots of moving parts that had to be brought together in a timely way to make it all work. I think I would make a great project planner now given the skills I gained along the way. It made moving house feel like a breeze. To top it all off, my installation was runner up for the people’s choice award! I blogged the whole process of making “But is it RAT?” on my blog.

Overlapping the Anagram exhibition in April I also exhibited “Eve in Exile” and “Eve’s Soul” at the Baxter Gallery in Kingston with Patsy Buchanan’s Under the Radar exhibition. Every time I used to drive into Kingston I would see the artwork in the big windows that faced out to the road. It was such a visible location for passing pedestrians and traffic.

Open studios in June went well. We had a greater number through our doors than ever before and I sold a few pieces. One in particular was bought by an art lover who had seen the piece the previous year at Open Studios and again at the Menier Gallery before contacting me this year to make the purchase. I am very happy it went to someone who will really appreciate it.

In September, I participated in The Merton Arts Festival for the first time, with fellow artist and friend Ben Nicholas. It was an arts trail for the Merton area and a lot of the exhibitors were from in and around Wimbledon. We showed our work in Ben’s house with some glass makers. There were lots of interesting sculptures made of glass and ceramics in his garden. I kept walking around going, “I want that one!”

Finally, I was contacted by my college Putney School of Art and Design, to give an artist talk for their second year students. I was delighted to be asked and spent over a week preparing a presentation on Keynote, an excellent presentation tool my husband recommended to me.

The talk, at the beginning of December, was a journey of my experiences as an artist. My aim with this talk was to get them thinking about their development and identity as artists and their strategies for moving forward. I had learnt a lot in the last four years and it was rewarding to be able to share that with them.  I enjoyed being back at my old college and seeing my tutor Jan again.  It brings back many fond memories.  It was an honour to share my knowledge with this years 2nd year students.  My talk was well received and the students found the content useful.  It’s amazing to think that it wasn’t that long ago that I was sitting in their seats listening to another artist talk about their practise.  So much has happened sine then and I have grown through it all. I look forward to developing my practise further in the New Year where I will be focusing on my painting in my lovely new home studio.

Part II: Expedition

 Eve in Exile has had an exciting journey.  In March I exhibited the installation at two different venues for Women’s History Month. First at Espacio Gallery in Shoreditch for 2 weeks followed by another 2 weeks at The I’klectik Art Lab – a creative space for cross-disciplinary artists to exhibit and collaborate on projects together. Whilst exhibiting at The I’klectik, classical oboist Catherine Pluygers  responded to the Eve in Exile installation with an improvisational piece. I found out that she was Dutch and had family in the camps in Indonesia during WW2 as well. 

 

Things did not slow down.  Eve in Exile had barely been back in my studio before I moved her to the next location where she was exhibited at the Oil & Water Gallery in Old Wandsworth, as part of the 2-week Under the Radar exhibition curated by Patsy Buchanan. There was a steady flow of visitors and it was a great opportunity to engage a new audience with my installation. Plus Patsy arranged an evening for me to read excerpts from my Omama’s war journal to an audience interested in the art and the story. The evening led to some interesting and emotional dialogue, as there were those in the audience who had also been impacted by the experiences of their families interned in the camps.

 

But the story did not end there for the Eve in Exile installation, as in June I was excited to curate my work in my own studio at the Kingston ASC’s Annual Open Studios. We had a good footfall of visitors, the standard of work across the studios was high and we all worked hard to make it a pleasurable experience for everyone.  I was pleased with the amount of interest and dialogue Eve in Exile and the sculptural pictures generated.  It was a fun couple of weekends and I made some great connections and sales.

 

While Eve in Exile was on tour I had time to work on a commission for my local church’s 125th anniversary celebration. I was given the brief to create something that reflected the history and community spirit within the church. It is a church with a diverse community spanning every continent over several generations, with some new members and others had been there all their lives. Therefore, I decided that I would capture the concept that the church was the people not the building while still respecting its history. 

 

I created a collage in the shape of the building and surrounds using photo headshots of each member of the church, past and present. The photos of the older members made up the roof and the history shared with me by the older members along with old church publications formed the text that I weaved into the foundations. The pillars at the entrance to the building consisted of photos I took of many of the plaques I found around the church. 

Everyone I spoke to was excited about the project and very helpful in coming forward to have their photographs taken.  Many of them shared their old photos with me of past members and things that had taken place within the community, I was able to incorporate the old photos along with the ones I took into the collage. Everyone was keen to be involved in some way. One man even asked me to visit his mum who had been a member of the church most of her life but now was elderly and immobile. I was quite moved by his desire for her to be included in the project. It was a special experience to meet with the people that made up WPBC's community and I was touched by everyone's willingness to participate.

 

The unveiling of the artwork, titled Celebrating 125 years of worshipping, growing, and serving together in Christ, took place on the 6th of June and the collage was very well received and now hangs in the foyer at the entrance to the church.

 

In August I exhibited with The Artist Pool at the Menier Gallery in London Bridge. Forces of Nature was a month long exhibition, which meant we were able to get more visitors to come and see the work. One visitor turned out to be an art blogger who reviews exhibitions in and around London. I was especially pleased with her review of my work.  Additionally, we organised several events during the exhibition and I particularly enjoyed the performance art piece by Julia Tester.

 

In September I was back at Espacio Gallery for the Form and Vision exhibition and was impressed with the standard of work across the exhibition, the way it was curated by the excellent Terry Beard and Stephen Murfitt. 

 

Later that month, and the highlight of the year,  my Eve in Exile installation was shortlisted for the Passion for Freedom Award! and it was exhibited at the Mall Galleries on The Mall alongside guest artists Jessica Fulford-Dobson, Skateistan and Jamie McCartney’s “The Great Wall of Vagina”. It was an exciting evening with a long queue outside for most of the evening, waiting to just get into the exhibition. And I made a friend, another exhibiting artist Emma Elliot, who received two awards that evening.

Never a dull moment, there was even controversy over the banning of one of the artist’s – Mimsy’s “Sylvanian Families who are interrupted by MICE-IS” – due to security concerns. All in all it was a memorable night.

 

All in all an empowering year and as such, I started work on a new series of paintings and an unusual installation. 

 

But that’s for 2016, so watch this space!

Part I: Inspiration

 At the beginning of 2015 I knew there was a full calendar ahead so felt somewhat pressured to complete the 'Eve in Exile' installation in time for Women’s History Month, a project that carried a lot of personal significance for me.

The humour, courage and strength endured by my Dutch grandmother, my Oma, during her time in the Japanese World War II (WW2) prisoner of war camps was the inspiration for Eve in Exile. Spending a considerable amount of time researching – the history of that period; the biographies of other women who were interned during WW2; and reading my great-grandmother's journal helped me to understand their gruelling time in the camps. The title Eve in Exile is taken from the journal. The women in the camp found ways to bring humour into the bleak days, and one of these was to name the houses they were camped in.  Paradise, but without Adam and Eve in Exile were some of the names of these houses.

The unbroken spirit of all of these women was poignant. They found hope and a will to hang on, which was wrapped up in their need to hold onto their few possessions; it brought them joy in such bleak circumstances. I was deeply moved by their courage and comradeship by looking out for one another, when I could only imagine how it would have been easy to just look out for oneself and I believed that these actions unearthed strength in their unity.

 

Therefore, making Eve in Exile was a particularly challenging prospect for me. I was committed to an idea to create a personally influenced work that best narrated my voice and that of these women. They funnelled my energies into working with unknown materials, as now as in the past I always got a kick out of exploring unventured territories as it provided opportunities to learn new things. My experiences have always taught me to spend a considerable amount of time refining the concept in my head, working out how I would make the installation structurally sound before attempting to make anything. Often this involved a lot of online research and in this case, for the first time, I documented the process on my Tumblr blog and so relieved that I now have recorded the experiences. Years from now I will look back and become nostalgic about making the orchids and breaking knives on the vintage suitcases that I deconstructed to make a frame for the barb wire wreath. But equally important I will remember mastering new concepts and techniques that broadened the whole experience.

As well as being hardy and flexible, the orchid has the same significance as a war memorial to the people of South East Asia as the poppy has to Europeans. It was also the national flower of what was then the Dutch East Indies and is still the national flower of Indonesia. This is why it forms such a significant part of the installation. 

 

To support the Eve in Exile installation I created 3 mixed media sculptural pictures: Eve’s Mark, Eve’s Fall and Camping with Eve. While my installation expressed the hope, resilience and unbroken spirit of the women exiled, these pictures reflected the unseen scars of trauma that left their mark even long after the terrible event.

I am drawn to trees, their symbolism and their constant presence in a changing world. I see them as strong and rooted whilst enduring the elements through time and, as did the women, leave their mark; at times battered but still standing. They tell the story of the women who survived and who will continue to survive and carry the marks of their experience hidden under the surface for the remainder of their lives.

The last 12 months have been an interesting journey for me, since I made the personal decision to share the experiences of my grandmother - my "Oma" ie, Mary Gabrielse - and her mother - my great grandmother "Omama" during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies and their internment as prisoners of war.

These experiences were shared in the diary of my Omama, which were heart rendering but exhibited the strength, resilience, creativity and humour, that helped them cope and find purpose during a time of suffering, humiliation and loss. Her journal was translated from Dutch to English by my father. My Oma drew numerous illustrations of life during this period and many of these colourful illustrations survived and are located in the Hague Museum - Museon.

As a mixed media painter and installation artist, I explore issues of identity, displacement and personal meaning. I started this project by creating mixed media pieces that captured the internal marks left by experience. Using photographs, acrylic, ink and bark I created surfaces inspired by the materiality of trees that have weathered the elements, which I use as a representation of the internal marks left by trauma. When someone has suffered they can appear fine while carrying their scars deep within.  I used a collage of photographs of trees on the outer areas to reflect this superficial veneer, using many layers.  As you view the work you are drawn to the centre which is sculptural and deeply set within the piece, where I use organic materials that are textured and rough, the scars of their experience.   The women in this story translated the suffering into something inspiring and transcendent; an unbroken spirit!

The installation was the next phase and by using barbed wire, copper, canvas, water colour paper, ink, coffee, bed linen and vintage cases impressed on me how desolate these women must have felt to lose almost everything and, in many cases, their lives. The Orchid had particular significance, the national flower of Indonesia and memorial flower for war in the Dutch East Indies, symbolised strength and survival -  hope, spirit and courage.

During the Second World War, this brave young Dutch girl, for me was a symbol of what freedom truly meant. Her gruelling experiences and the stories she shared stayed with me and I remembered being in awe of her and what she had endured.

It was so hard for my Oma to remember a time of freedom before war broke out, but she survived and hope kept her alive. The painful memories have stayed with her all of her life and those who did not make it are forever in her thoughts. My Oma, my brave, brave Oma!