Zi Ling: Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 209th Exhibition

I'm looking forward to seeing new work by Zi Ling this week in the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 209th Exhibition at Mall Galleries - 20 - 29 May 2021.

Zi Ling (b. 1985, HuangShan, China) is a visual artist based in Bristol. She was born to the Chinese painter HuiTao Lin, a pioneer of the 85 New Wave Movement. Since the age of four, she received formal training from him in drawings.

She has studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Chelsea College of Arts and Central Academy of Fine Arts China.

Her work of etchings, watercolours, drawings, video art and mixed medium have been displayed at many prestigious venues and exhibitions. She received the Cass Art Prize (2019), DAC Beachcroft Space Prize (2018), Frank Herring Easel Award (2018), First Prize of Leathersellers Award (2016), and the Rosemary & Co. Prize (2015) from the Princess Michael of Kent.

She is a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the co-Artistic Director of the theatre company Eldarin Yeong Studio.

See Ling's work here and here. 

During her early years she focused mainly on etching, fascinated with mark making of abstract figures. Now the relationship between brush, colour and paper is what excites her in portrait painting using watercolour as her medium. Ling observes people and also finds emotional moments from photographic images as inspiration. With watercolour, she trusts her intuition before making any marks. She thinks each portrait is a result of whatever truth one feels at the very beginning. Colour is important to her because for her it represents different personalities and realities.

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 Joni Mitchell - Song For Sharon.

Zi Ling & Eldarin Yeong

This year, Zi Ling has been accepted as a Candidate Member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours 206th Exhibition at Mall Galleries will show a diversity of styles and techniques, from traditional uses of the medium to more experimental and innovative paintings. Works on display are produced by members of the RI and other artists whose pictures have been selected to hang alongside these by the RI Council, including many young painters using water-soluble media in often new and exciting ways. This is Ling's fourth exhibition with the Institute since 2015. She will have four new paintings included in the exhibition. 

This weekend, in a remarkable first, staff from all four British Tate galleries are to display their own artistic creations at Tate Modern in London. The exhibition, entitled Inside Job, will present works by 135 employees from Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, including painting, photography and sculptures. Staff whose work will be displayed include curators, art handlers, guards, shop assistants, visitor assistants and people from the finance, restaurant and marketing departments. The exhibition has been partly financed by the Tate Social Fund.

Jing Eldarin Yeong joined the Tate in May 2017 and is showing Dry Room, an associate dance video of a cross-disciplinary piece that she wrote and produced last year for the World Stage Design Quadrennial. It is a collaboration between her Studio and the videographer Jevan Chowdhury. She says: 'To make it an independent piece from the theatre production, we used London cityscape as the backdrop and tried to capture the sense of isolation, self-estrangement and social meaninglessness. It is also about breaking the boundary of theatre, responding to the environment, and exploring non-conventional space.'

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Lizz Wright - Speak Your Heart.

Exhibitions update: Zi Ling, Rob Floyd & Tim Harrold

Zi Ling has won the Leathersellers First Prize of £1000 to a young artist with her painting 'Rikishi' at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours 2016 Exhibition at the Mall Galleries. The exhibition is the 204th by the RI and continues until Saturday 16th April. 

Ling creates portraits or explorations of relationships by working from photographs with which she feels an intuitive connection. Previously Ling has had work in the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2016, Columbia Threadneedle Prize exhibition, the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition exhibition, and Society of Women Artists (where she won the Rosemary & Company Art Prize); all at Mall Galleries. Click here to see examples of Ling's work.

‘Stations of the Resurrection’ is an exhibition by Rob Floyd in The Well and Other Areas of Liverpool Cathedral until 15th May 2016, 09:00 – 18:00 (each day).

Rob Floyd brings his distinctive painting style to Liverpool Cathedral in this specially commissioned exhibition that follows on from the acclaimed ‘Stations of the Cross’ cycle previously displayed at Manchester Cathedral.

Speaking ahead of this exhibition, Rob said, “The Stations of the Resurrection is far less well known or, indeed, established than the Stations of the Cross, perhaps this extra layer of mystery appealed. Certainly Liverpool Cathedral being the Cathedral Church of the Risen Christ made the idea of the project feel right.”

The impressive art series has been created with the artist’s preferred medium, oil on canvas. Rob said, “For me oil paint has a visceral, living, even mystical property which I feel has an incredible power and, indeed, life of its own.”

“Painting has always been my means with which to attempt to engage with the Divine. From as early as I can remember I have always felt that the world is inherently full of meaning and I’m thankful that I have never been touched with that modern ‘existential angst’ of being all alone in a meaningless universe. Having the opportunity to directly engage in producing a Stations of the Cross cycle and now the Stations of the Resurrection has been an incredible opportunity and an amazing journey, both in terms of my artistic and spiritual development. I have been shown great kindness and support from the cathedral which has been quite overwhelming.”

The Perceptualist Eye is an exhibition by Tim Harrold at The Wellhouse Gallery from 15 May to 10 June 2016.

Tim defines ‘Perceptualism’ as ‘the place where the conceptual and the metaphysical meet’, and comes from the word ‘perceive’. The Perceptualist Eye is therefore about a way of seeing, a worldview, a certain perspective.

Informed by his Christian Faith and inspired by his pilgrimage through life with Jesus, many of Tim’s pieces are in some way ‘visual parables’ – they have meanings that work on a number of levels.

Working mostly with mixed media, Tim brings together ‘found objects’ and rearranges them into new contexts, scenes and stories. Tim often incorporates words in the images he creates. This reflects his loves of graphic design and writing, especially ‘found poetry’.

Methods used by Tim are:

• Assemblage – 3-dimensional pieces and ‘worlds in boxes’
• Photomontage – collages using images and words from printed materials
• Photography – using primarily the iPhone Hipstamatic app which allows in-camera treatments
• Installation – larger, conceptual ‘pop-up’ works that have an interactive element, which can include sound

Tim’s repertoire covers the commercial and the not-so-commercial. His art is not just about the intrigue of the visual but also the idea behind the image.

From 9 July Tim will also be part of a joint exhibition with John Espin, as part of Thurrock Art Trail, in the small but perfectly formed ancient pilgrimage church St Mary the Virgin Parish Church in Little Thurrock, Grays. Both shows will feature new work, and the latter will hopefully show some larger pieces that have not been previously seen before in public owing to space.

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Blessid Union of Souls - Peace And Love.

Asylum rights & wrongs

In 2007 the Evangelical Alliance produced ‘alltogether for Asylum Justice’ a report seeking to address injustices in the asylum system.

The specific situation which the report seeks to address is that of asylum seekers who have genuinely chosen to follow the Christian faith once in the UK and then apply for asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. Having had their asylum application refused, they face being sent back to countries where it is not safe for them to practice their faith. Christian human rights organisations such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Release International know it is often unsafe to return a practising Christian to an Islamic country let alone return an apostate (a convert to Christianity) to an Islamic country where conversion is illegal. Therefore, there are grave implications for returning asylum seekers who have converted to Christianity to countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The report concludes that, while recognising that the issue of faith testing is complex, there is room for improvement in the current system used to determine the genuineness of an appellant’s conversion. While recognising that objective questioning is used to determine the faith of an appellant, there are a number of problems with this system.

Firstly, many of the questions used cannot give a true representation of the appellant’s faith because they are: a) based on western Christian culture (e.g. ‘How do you cook a turkey for Christmas?’); b) insensitive to the particular type of Christianity that the appellant has been exposed to (e.g. asking a Pentecostal convert about Anglican liturgy); c) asking things which aren’t even in the Bible (e.g. such as knowing the names of the thieves crucified on the crosses alongside Jesus or the name of the forbidden fruit ).

Secondly, questions of this nature are insufficient to grasp the genuineness of an appellant’s faith. This can only be fully understood if the leader of the church which the appellant has been attending gives an account of their conversion and Christian faith. The church leader ought to be able to give evidence of a changed lifestyle and/or behaviour, an interest in the Bible and in sharing their faith with others.
 
Thirdly, country information used to determine whether it is safe for a practising Christian to be returned to countries where apostates are persecuted is often inaccurate.
 
Having had recent experience of supporting a parishioner who is in the situation addressed by this report, it seems to me that the issues identified in this report remain in the system as currently operated. I am therefore seeking ways and means by which there could be further lobbying of the Government on this issue.

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The Clash - I Fought the Law.