Dazzle & Disrupt: with

QUAY ARTS

By Georgia Newman

DAZZLE & DISRUPT

Clayden Gallery, Quay Arts

Sat 27th March - Sun 13th June | Jeannie Driver & Lisa Traxler

Dazzle & Disrupt is our much-anticipated exhibition of 2021. Delayed for almost a year since the first lockdown in 2020, we explore the work of two emerging contemporary visual artists working in the South; Jeannie Driver and Lisa

Traxler, focusing on themes of perception, disorientation and disruption, instigated through the investigation of the Dazzle phenomenon.

Dazzle was invented in 1917 by marine artist

Norman Wilkinson. Wilkinson’s ‘Dazzle’ designs were used to disrupt and disorientate German

U-boats at sea during the First World War by painting British and Allied ships in striking geometric patterns. By the end of the First World War thousands of merchant ships and hundreds of naval vessels had been ‘Dazzled’ in what constituted the world’s largest public art and design display. The masterful and dazzling effect this had on its onlooker questioned where they were positioned, its scale, its shape and distance. So much uncertainty, of what we are seeing and where we are positioned, draws comparisons to our current emotions towards the pandemic and feelings of isolation and the unknown in 2020 and 2021. The new commissions will form the main exhibition in the West Gallery with sculptural works, film, installations and wall murals. The Café will show 2D works on paper by the artists - making further exploration into the line, drawing, shape and form, referencing their installation works.

The Clayden Gallery will become a research and learning space, providing information on the story of Dazzle and its relationship to the Island’s maritime heritage, together with the artists’ preparatory works, revealing their creative processes through sketchbooks, maquettes and research notes.

Online Launch: Sat 27th March 2021 Check out our website for dates and details for downloadable resources, online virtual gallery tours, talks and book launch with the artists, curators and Dazzle experts. www.quayarts.org

Dazzle & Disrupt is kindly supported by Arts Council England, Art UK, Royal Society of Sculptors, St Barbe Gallery & Museum, IW Heritage Service, AJ Wells & Sons, CutLaserCut, Art Space Portsmouth, Daisie Rich Trust and Wightlink.

Above top left: In Conversation (10). 2018. Giclee print. 297 x 420 mm. Limited Ed 20. (One of 10 images from In Conversation, a durational performance drawing with pauses) ©jeanniedriver 2019. Above top right: Lisa Traxler, photo by Julian Winslow Drawing 2,2,4,131. (Detail)

2020 ©jeanniedriver 2018

Transformation 1 Lisa Traxler

Photo by David Whistance