Wikio - Top Blogs - Religion and belief

Monday 18 March 2024

The Minories, Colchester




The Minories is an arts charity and gallery in an historic townhouse in central Colchester. 74 High Street has long been an essential part of any visit to the town centre, and in the warmer months its secluded garden is a particular delight. To discover its peace and calm for the first time is a memory that certainly seems to remain in many visitors’ hearts. Inside, in the galleries and reception rooms, elegant spaces can be found ideal for quiet, visual contemplation.

Clarence Victor Batte-Lay (1865-1935) was a Colchester man who had done well in the brewing business in Norfolk, and retired to Colchester where he built a collection of art and artefacts. His widow, Mrs Margaret Eleanor Batte-Lay, died in 1955 and left the collection and a sum of money to purchase ‘an ancient building of antiquarian or archaeological interest’ to house the collection, in memory of her husband, and ‘for the benefit and advantage of the inhabitants of Colchester’.

“…The exhibitions held by the Trust from 1958 to 1993… numbered some four hundred. [This] represents an artistic achievement of which any gallery could be justifiably proud. Constable, Becker, Bawden, Nash, Bratby, Manet and contemporary artists such as John Doubleday, Anthony Atkinson, Guy Taplin, nine names chosen at random from this eclectic list, indicate the range and quality of the shows. The exhibitions included regular shows by the Colchester Art Society and Colchester School of Art and Design. And embraced sculpture, ceramics and textiles as well as paintings and prints.” (John Woods and Clifford Welch, Celebration of 50 Years of the Victor Batte Lay Trust, 2005)

Firstsite occupied the Minories and ran a vibrant gallery and art centre throughout the 1990s and until 2009 when it moved into its new building next door. Then Colchester Institute took the lease and used the Minories to accommodate its postgraduate MA course in fine art. With the arrival of the Covid19 pandemic lockdown, the Institute closed the building and announced it would not reopen during the remainder of its lease. At this announcement, the Victor Batte-Lay Foundation decided the time had come to take back control of the Minories and, working with artists, arts organisations, community groups, public bodies, and the people of Colchester and North Essex, to reimagine the Minories as an arts centre for the post-Covid twenty-first century.

The current exhibitions are:

Hayletts Gallery: Contemporary and Modern British Original Prints
Saturday 16 – Sunday 24 March 2024, 10am - 4pm


A selection of screenprints, etchings, woodcuts, linocuts and lithographs, incorporating works by many of the most noted artists from 1940’s to the current day. Includes prints by pioneering Essex artists:- Edward Bawden, Eduardo Paolozzi, John Nash, Humphrey Spender and Michael Rothenstein. There are also artworks by:- David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Henry Moore, Eric Ravilious, Barbara Hepworth, Paula Rego, Tracey Emin, Elisabeth Frink, Elizabeth Blackadder, Peter Blake, Mary Fedden, Edward Burra, Victor Pasmore, John Piper, Terry Frost, John Hoyland, Julian Opie, Marc Quinn, Albert Irvin, Craigie Aitchison, Anita Klein, Karolina Larusdottir, Patrick Caulfield, David Shrigley and Julian Trevelyan.

Works on Paper from the Victor Batte-Lay Foundation Collection
Thursday 15 February – Sunday 24 March 2024, 10am - 4pm


A exhibition of works on paper drawn from the Permanent Art Collection of the Victor Batte-Lay Foundation, who own the Minories. Featuring Dione Page, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Lucien Pissarro, Lisa Temple-Cox, John Nash, Paul Nash and John Bensusan-Butt.

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Dave Gahan - Kingdom.

Saturday 16 March 2024

Windows on the world (458)

 


London, 2024

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The Prayer Chain - I Believe.

Hannah Rose Thomas: Tears of Gold


Last night I was at Exhibition Launch for 'Tears of Gold' at Garden Court Chambers. This exhibition by the artist, author, and human rights activist Hannah Rose Thomas features portraits of Yazidi women who escaped ISIS captivity, Rohingya women who fled violence in Myanmar, and Nigerian women who survived Boko Haram and Fulani oppression. Hannah’s most recent portraits depict survivors of the re-education camps in Xinjiang, China, and of conflicts in Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

With these artworks, along with the associated publication Tears of Gold, Thomas bears witness—painting by painting, relationship by relationship—to the singular stories shared by each individual, and by extension the trauma and recovery experienced by their communities.

This body of work not only serves as a reminder to remain concerned about the ongoing persecution of people around the world based on their backgrounds and beliefs, but also reflects on the complexities and limits of empathy as we look to pursue justice more compassionately.

Hannah Rose Thomas demonstrates the potential of caring and creative practices that take time to listen, learn, and focus a prayer-like attention on the suffering of others and in the process reveal a sense of interrelatedness, common vulnerability, and shared humanity that allows for healing and hope.

Hannah Rose Thomas is a British artist and an UNESCO PhD Scholar at the University of Glasgow. She has previously organized art projects for Syrian refugees in Jordan; Yazidi women who escaped ISIS captivity in Iraqi Kurdistan; Rohingya refugees in Bangladeshi camps and Nigerian women survivors of Boko Haram. Her paintings of displaced women are a testament to their strength and dignity. These have been exhibited at prestigious places including the UK Houses of Parliament, European Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Lambeth Palace, Westminster Abbey, the International Peace Institute in New York and The Saatchi Gallery.

Her exhibition Tears of Gold was featured in the virtual exhibition for the UN’s Official 75th Anniversary, “The Future is Unwritten: Artists for Tomorrow.” Hannah was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 2019 Art & Culture; shortlisted for the Women of the Future Award 2020 and selected for British Vogue Future Visionaries 2022. Hannah’s debut art book Tears of Gold: Portraits of Yazidi, Rohingya and Nigerian Women was published in 2024, with a foreword by HM King Charles III.

The book also presents Thomas' stunning portrait paintings of Yazidi women who escaped ISIS captivity, Rohingya women who fled violence in Myanmar, and Nigerian women who survived Boko Haram violence, alongside their own words, stories, and self-portraits. A final chapter features portraits and stories of Afghan, Ukrainian, Uyghur, and Palestinian women.

These portraits, depicting women from three continents and three religions, are a visual testimony not only of war and injustice but also of humanity and resilience. Many of the women have suffered sexual violence; all have been persecuted and forcibly displaced on account of their faith or ethnicity.

Hannah Rose Thomas met these women in Iraqi Kurdistan, Bangladeshi refugee camps, and Northern Nigeria while organizing art projects to teach women how to paint their self-portraits as a way to reclaim their personhood and self-worth. She gives women their own voice both by creating a safe space for them to share their stories and by using her impressive connections to make sure their stories are heard in places of influence in the Global North.

Thomas uses techniques of traditional sacred art – early Renaissance tempera and oil painting and gold leaf – to convey the sacred value of each of these women in spite of all that they have suffered. This symbolic restoration of dignity is especially important considering the stigma surrounding sexual violence. Hannah’s work attests to the power of the arts as a vehicle for healing, remembering, inclusion, and dialogue.

Long after the news cameras have moved on to the next conflict, this book shines a spotlight on the ongoing work of healing and restoration in some of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities around the world.

Hannah's essay from the book can be read here. My interview with Hannah for Artlyst can be read here. My Church Times review of her UN75 exhibition is here. Hannah exhibited at St Stephen Walbrook in 2017 and posts about that exhibition are here and here. Hannah also participated in a HeartEdge workshop on 'Art and Social Change' which can be viewed here.

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Tim Hughes - We Won't Stay Silent.

Index of interviews

I've just had my first interview for International Times published. This interview is with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

I have carried out a large number of other interviews for Artlyst, ArtWay, Church Times and Seen&Unseen. They provide a wide range of fascinating insights into the approaches and practices of artists, arts professionals, clerics, curators, poets and writers. 

They can be found at:

Artlyst
ArtWay
Church Times
Seen and Unseen
Also see my interviews with artist Henry Shelton here and here and David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking, here, here and here.

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L.S. Underground - This Is The Healing.

International Times: Jago Cooper talks to Jonathan Evens - Living art and urgent questions

Here's my latest interview which has been published by International Times. This interview is with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts:
 
"Building on these radical foundations, Dr Jago Cooper, as Director of the Sainsbury Centre, and his team have been helping people find new ways to move, feel, think, and activate themselves within the museum and build new relationships with living work of arts in their own way. These approaches include: a pay what you can afford entry scheme; curated journeys through the collection; a Handbook for Meeting Living Art which suggests practical steps and techniques; and a new Living Art exhibition that allows visitors, who don’t want digital or text-based approaches, to feel what is meant when thinking about living art."

Earlier I reviewed the 'What is Truth?' season of exhibitions for International Times and wrote an article for Seen and Unseen - 'Life is more important than art' - which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions, such as those at the Sainsbury Centre, which tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My earlier reviews for International Times were of: 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt; the first Pissabed Prophet album - 'Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired & profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse & inspire' - and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford last Autumn. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'.

My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

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Michael Knott - Van Gogh.

Tuesday 12 March 2024

Artlyst: Issam Kourbaj Kettle’s Yard And Heong Gallery Cambridge

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on Issam Kourbaj: Urgent Archive at Kettle’s Yard, with its concurrent exhibition ‘You are not you, and home is not home’ at Heong Gallery:

'As Andrew Nairne and Graham Virgo state in their joint Foreword to the catalogue, Kourbaj’s achievement is not simply his “remarkable artistic breadth” in creating work “so full of invention and purpose that its images and ideas reverberate well beyond the walls of any gallery” but his ability ‘to make us look, pause and imagine” that we might “consider our responsibility for the condition of others on our shared planet”.'

For more on Issam Kourbaj click here.

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -


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Saturday 9 March 2024

Artlyst - The Art Diary March 2024

My March Art Diary for Artlyst includes exhibitions at Kettle’s Yard, Gallery 1957, Dulwich Picture Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Compton Verney, Stanley Spencer Gallery, Benjamin Rhodes Arts and covers artists such as Isaam Kourbaj, Nidhi Khurana, Woody De Othello, Polly Braden, Matthew Askey, Steve Whittle, Patrice Moor and Josh Tiessen:

"Steve Whittle’s retrospective at the Beecroft Gallery in Southend includes a series of Stations of the Cross and other crucifixion and resurrection images. Additionally, there are images of churches, including St Peter’s Chapel at Bradwell. M.L. Banting writes: “Asking what had drawn him to this ancient Chapel, Whittle says it’s almost impossible to put into words, he’d felt a primal and immediate connection on his first visit and had to return again and again. That powerful pull has resulted in a number of works, including charcoals, pastels, paintings and collages, all of which portray the extraordinary sense, or spirit, of place – remote, lonely, glorious and powerful – the austere silhouette of the Chapel monumental against the sea and sky.”"

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -
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The Waterboys - Spirit.