50 Scene
ART MATTERS BY ENZO MARRA
) This month I’m going to be rounding up some of my recent creative activities over the last few months. I have been curating and touring a group show of paintings in Salford and Middlesbrough, which is set to travel to Swansea in 2022. The exhibition was titled Stand Close and Breathe Me In and was shown at Oceans Apart in June and July, and Pineapple Black in August and September. Stand Close and Breathe Me In is a group exhibition of paintings which explores the collective spirit of small-scale imagery within the context of a painting-viewer relationship. These paintings draw you in. They initiate an intimate response and engage the viewer in the act of looking. They arrest us at close quarters via the smallest of painterly activities and devices. Each painting punctuates the next and radiates into the space and into each other. They converse and mingle, sending out messages like invisible rays. They enter the body through the eyes and remain there as propositions, questions and after-images. These paintings remind us that ‘size isn’t everything’. Up close, we’re able to scrutinise content and the manner in which the paintings were made. We experience the surface as a consequence of process, feeling each painting’s meaning through its distinctive mode of making. At a distance, we witness the bigger picture, where the paintings converse silently at arm’s length, collaborating as dots and dashes and through repetition and strength in numbers. Approaching these paintings, they begin to reveal and conceal themselves simultaneously. Clarity is administered in their obscurity and abstraction before we back away to achieve a sense of perspective in the collective. The exhibiting artists were Julian Brown, Kena Brown, Ruth Calland, Andrew Crane, Jeff Dellow, Lisa Denyer, Rosalind Faram, Susie Hamilton, Alex Hanna, David Lock, David Manley, me (Enzo Marra), Gideon Pain, Alison Pilkington, James Quin, Dan Samuel Thomas, Katie Trick, Rhys Trussler, Grant Watson, Lily-Ella Westacott, Casper White and Dylan Williams. I am also one of the judges for the Lido Open 2021, which is set to result in a group exhibition of shortlisted artists and a solo show in 2022. This is a new gallery space directly opposite the iconic Margate Lido and entries will still be accepted until October 12. No entry fees, just participation fees for the selected artists. If you’re interested or tempted, you just need to email a biography and artist statement (300 words max), and up to three images complete with their titles, dimensions, materials, price and date of execution to thelidostores@gmail.com. The other judges are gallery owners Kristen Healy and Emma Curtis. If you have suitable 2D wall-based works, which don’t exceed 22 x 30cm, we look forward to looking through your entries very soon. I will be exhibiting in the Lido Stores between September 16 & 26 in Sugar Cube, a group show, beforehand.
ALL THAT JAZZ BY SIMON ADAMS
REVIEWS
) XHOSA COLE K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us (Stoney Lane Records). Twenty-four-year-old saxophonist Xhosa Cole is a great young black musician, a proud native of Birmingham with a fine Brummie accent to go with it. And he is an equally proud member of the LGBTQ+ community with a real social conscience: when I last saw him live at Brighton’s Verdict club, many yonks before Covid, he talked passionately about the scourge of street homelessness. What’s not to like? His debut album celebrates the music and heritage of seven great African-American composers and improvisers through a contemporary Black British lens. Guesting with his quartet are two more great Brummies: saxophonist Soweto Kinch and pianist Reuben James. Together they pack a joyous punch, Cole’s driving saxophone lines leading the charge. This is the sort of debut that any young musician must dream of. Just listen! ) JAIMIE BRANCH Fly or Die Live (International Anthem). Jaimie Branch is an American trumpet player, one of the few women to play the trumpet, and one of the few of any gender to play it so well. Caught live at a club in Zurich in March 2020, playing a repertoire road-tested after extensive touring, this lengthy set features cello, bass, drums, thumb piano, and tuned percussion as well as Branch’s explosive trumpet, giving many of the tracks the feel of a carnival or a street dance rather than a traditional jazz performance. What results is joyous music from start to finish, ebullient, thoughtful, and often surprising in its sudden shifts and turns. Branch herself is a magnificent trumpeter, leading from the front. If only circumstances would allow us to hear her play live. ) MATT RIDLEY The Antidote (Ubuntu). The Antidote, as in an antidote to the troubles facing the modern world, troubles that obviously concern leader Matt Ridley. He wants his music to unite, not divide, to heal and not harm. His own antidote predates the current coronavirus crisis, but is all the more valid for it. Ridley is an accomplished bass player and composer, now on his third album as leader. He likes to blend jazz with rock and folk music, delivered in places with symphonic grandeur, producing an album of sonic contrasts and some surprise. The improvisation is dynamic, each piece well thought out, though some will object to the prog-rock postures that tend to dominate. But it is still worth a listen.
