Visual Arts August.qxp_Layout 1 22/07/2021 17:11 Page 1
Visual Arts previews from around the region
Living Memory Project: The Black Country The New Art Gallery, Walsall, until Sun 26 September
Mary Newcomb: Nature’s Canvas Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park, Warwickshire, until Sun 5 September
The most extensive-ever survey of Mary Newcomb’s work, Nature’s Canvas shows at Compton Verney 99 years after the artist’s birth. Selftaught and, for the main part, living in rural East Anglia, Mary was also a natural scientist, a farmer and a writer, with her written output being closely aligned with her art. Focusing, in her beautifully subtle paintings, on the rituals of the unfolding seasons and the countryside around her, she was
38 whatsonlive.co.uk
eager for people to take time to stop and appreciate the natural world. “In our haste,” she once wrote in her diary, “in this century, we may not give time to pause and look and may pass on our way unheeding.” The exhibition features more than 50 of Mary’s works, presented alongside extracts from her writing and works by artists who inspired her.
“To talk on record, to tell our life’s story and give meaning to one’s personal and treasured photographs is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says Geoff Broadway, director of the Living Memory Project. The exhibition follows on from a four-year engagement with residents of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton which has seen everyday life stories and personal photographic collections being recorded, archived and celebrated. “The experience can be at once emotional, cathartic, enlightening and ultimately life-affirming,” continues Geoff. “To share these stories and photographs with others - online, in print, and through exhibitions - is to make the personal public, and to invite empathy, understanding and connection. These private stories and treasured images become part of our collective, cultural memory.”
