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Raymond Watson
In Search of a Higher Place
10 October to 10 November 1996 |
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The European debut of the internationally acclaimed artist Raymond Watson, the exhibition featured sculptures created over a period spanning three decades. Watson's subject is the human form, transformed, stretched and manipulated to find common elements that underpin the human condition.
In Search of a Higher Place was Raymond Watson's European debut one person exhibition of a new series of work he has created since coming to England from Jamaica nearly twenty months ago. Says the artist, "I journey in my search for spiritual continuity and the need to build bridges between the past, present and the future."
Hassan Aliyu,1996
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African Planes
Salvage sculpture from South Africa
5 September to 5 October 19
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This exhibition of South African artists' sculptures was created by Anne Carrington and supported by the London Arts Board and the Commonwealth Institute. These extraordinary sculptures, created from discarded materials and objects, provide a historical reference placing in context the 'new' concept of recycled art in Europe. Stunning docummentary photographs were an integral part of this exhibition. The spirit with which the African continent assimilates Western junk into new forms was the inspiration for this exhibition. Southern Africa was chosen as a main focus because of its long history of creativity with its waste materials. The photographs in this exhibition record the broad range of the creativity of recycled art and artifacts - reflecting the regional and personal responses to available materials - be it a wall built from cola cans in Botswana or a pair of sandals fashioned from defunct inner tubes in a township market in South Africa.
The artists who participated in this exhibition are all from Southern Africa with diverse backgrounds, age range and artistic motivation. What unites them is their use of found materials and the way their sculptures (cars, humans, musical instruments, aeroplanes) reflect and communicate the culture that produced them.
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Meridy Bates
Birth Rite
16 July to 17 August 1996 |
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Birth Rite was an exploration of place and identity, historical, cultural and psychological. The symbols, colour and vocabulary she has used are a means of exploring these areas with her inspirations deriving from Nubian art forms, symbols, oratory, motifs and textiles from traditional sources, particularly those of the Asanti and Yoruba, together with Caribbean influences. The vibrant images reflect Bates’s bi-racial experiences – providing an insight into human emotions, exploring boundaries of equality as well as social and political issues facing people of diverse cultural identity across the nation.
Bates’s aim is for her work to develop a human scale and resonance and her intention is to pursue the relationship that has begun to develop between the forms that compose the paintings.
From computer-generated montage ‘Collective’ to oil on canvas ‘Life Forms’, the works form a human scale, a presence, a sense of being, moving towards inherent qualities of both context and form. In their resonance and evolution they evoke feelings of the intricate, sexual equality, fertility, embryonic form and vulnerability with reference to organic form and imagery – just as the spirit of ‘Sankofa’ must revisit its history to determine its destiny; "I believe a people must know ‘whence they came’ to know where they are going" (Meridy Bates).
This exhibition consisted of oil paintings and works of mixed media.
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Michael Riley
Abstracts: New Aboriginalities
19 June to 20 July 1996
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The Spacex Gallery touring exhibition of the Aborigine photographer Michael Riley was about racism as experienced by the artist throughout his childhood. It combined two bodies of work and included two video installations showing works written and directed by Riley.
As part of Abstracts: New Aboriginalities, 198 Gallery presented new and recent work by Michael Riley, one of the most acclaimed Aboriginal photographers and film-makers in Australia today. Together, the two series of black-and-white cibachromes, two films and a multi-screen video work (Eora, commissioned by the Museum of Sydney), formed a dark, powerful chronicle of both an individual's experience of unofficial and institutional racism, and the recent history and present state of oppression and alienation suffered by the artist's people in their homeland.
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Salome Russell
Baisakh
7 May to 8 June 1996
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The first solo exhibition by Nepalese-born painter and sculptor. The artist combines traditional Nepali iconolography, themes of Nepali pattern and rhythm with her perceptions of everyday life. The exhibition included forest and waterfall installations.
A Woman, a Mother, a Wife, and Daughter
in essence a female
from the valleys of the Limpopo
to the Himalayan peaks
Women from different walks of life
Uphold, Culture, Art, History and Nature
Through the years of hardship and trial
We held our hands
Education and Learning, opened our eyes
Lovers of the Human race
In pain we make a gain
Our pride we will put aside
And yet we will hold our heads high
For I know
A woman is loved, cherished , honoured and of course desired
For she is the bearer like the mother Earth
and that for me is MATA
Mothers of future generations
Perceived in different lights
We are called by many names
And loved in tender ways
Some say Oh! Women, you are too bold
While others criticise my weakness
Some tell me I multiply
Some say I divide
And yet among all this commotion
I feel strong, I am happy;
For I know
From the heart of the Kalahari
To the heights of the Everest
A woman is the Pillar of society.
(Salome S-Russell)
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Raksha Patel & Niema Khan
Half Empty, Half Full
3 April to 4 may 19 |
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An exhibition of paintings, sculptures, prints and installations by two young Anglo-Indian women artists. Their work explores the notion of female identity and sexuality from an Asian perspective, particularly within the context of contemporary Britian.
"What do we think of when we visualise the Asian woman? For those of us who are not Asian women it is possible (and often probable) that a very specific set of stereotypical notions spring to mind. Invariably, these stereotypes see Asian women as being exotic, seductive, mysterious creatures of the East. Or helpless angels bullied into arranged marriages. Or sexually agile temptresses who exist only to service their men-folk." (Eddie Chambers)
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Faisal Abdu’Allah & Clive Allen
Revelations
21 February to 23 March 1996 |
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A highly innovative and powerful photographic exhibition by two leading young contemporary artists whose primary concern is to culturally centre the black subject.
Abdu'Allah's and Allen's work is about their origins; the black man, the black woman and their heredity. Through his work, Abdu'Allah recalls his own history and in doing this, he informs us about the history of civilisation on the African continent many thousands of years ago. Both artists are acutely aware of their own traditions and compare them to that of Europe. Through their experiences and studies in London, they have discovered misconceptions in understanding of black history and set about working in a way that challenges this ethos.
Abdu'Allah is a writer, artist and printer and his work is aimed at challenging our passivity toward accepted imagery. He says: "We exist without knowing or even caring for a part of our fellow man and what I do is to get hold of us and shake our complancencies about my race - the Nubians."
Abdu'Allah and Allen are able to stimulate our senses by presenting us with everyday contexts. They do this by utilising a variety of visual means - photographs, sculptures, text and mirrors. They also use music and historical figures in the same way. They take us on a journey. In Allen's own words: "A journey which then becomes the anecdote (or celebration) for us to understand the Nubian aesthetic, the kind of aesthetic which is poignant in all of our creations."
These two artists' representations of human figures centre around the notions of power and presence that redefine and push the boundaries of what is understood by the term portraiture. |
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