Edition XV October 2021 Editors Damian Rayne Gosia Malawska
Whats on
3......................................................Nicholas Cheeseman 4........................................................Caroline Mackenzie 5................................................................... ChrisDawes 6...............................................................Coral Churchill 7.............................................................Corinne Charton 8........................................................................Calendar 9.....................................................................Lightwaves 10-11.................................................. Hugh Wedderburn 12-13 ......................................................Richenda Court 14-16.................................................... Hing Yee Cheung 17...............................................................Hanna Quadir 18..........................................................Portobello Dance 19.............................................The Galleries Association 20..........................................................Portobello Dance 21..........................................Piers, what’s on your mind? 22-23........................................................Alfred Wolmark 24.................................................................Vicky Caplin
About...
In our online version, we focus on partner organisations, guest artists and residents to bring you a preview of ‘what is’, and ‘what’s to be expected’. We also have links to a wealth of online content this month, including: sound art files for music producers, virtual tours and interviews with our partner organisation (The Galleries Association) and a cross section of counter-culture to be found in West London.
The Muse was established in 2003 as an artist-led organisation, supporting both gallery and studio elements. Our gallery is situated in the heart of North Kensington, amongst the Georgian houses of Portobello Market. We host an annual residency programme with subsidised studio space and further show opportunities for recent graduates. Throughout the year we open our doors to artists, curating the space to present a balance of emerging and established professionals.In 2020 we are proud to support three new residents and a diverse list of national and international artists. We hope you enjoy a collection of work in this periodical; hopefully collectable images, whether online or printed — accessible art for our readership.
2021 continued... ENTRY POLICY Private views have been adapted to meet social distancing regulations. We are inviting visitors to book timed slots. These will comprise a fifteen-minute tour of the gallery, supervised by an associate, and with light refreshment available. Exhibiting artists are invited to attend where possible and at their discretion. Booking details for the private view will be published as part of the marketing campaign for each show, three weeks in advance of the opening date. During regular opening times, visitors may enter the gallery in couples, with a limit of up six people at a time. The best way to keep up to date is to subscribe to our mailing list here: www.themuseat269.com/subscribe OFFICIAL ACCESS TO THE MUSE IN October - December Opening hours in June: Thursday/Friday / Saturday/Sunday 12-6pm Please check our website for up to date information
The MUSE Gallery (UK Charity for the arts No.1162300) 269, Portobello Rd. London W11 1LR www.themuseat269.com info@themuseat269.com Twitter: Muse_Gallery Instagram: Muse_at_269
Cover - Chris Dawes, Skinscape, photography
Nicholas Cheeseman
Caroline Mackenzie
Chris Dawes
Coral Churchill
Corinne Charton
Chris Dawes - SkinScape 14 - 31 October
20 21
October - December
Corinne Charton 4 - 21 November
Michael Henley 25 November - 12 December
Coral Churchill & Caroline Mackenzie - Lightwaves
Lightwaves is an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and a collaborative installation by Coral Churchill and Caroline Mackenzie. Both artists explore the transparency, fragility, and vulnerability of humans in the world today. Together they have created a personal ecosystem fuelled by fantasy, wonder and seduction, a space of togetherness that acts as a panacea for the turbulence of the world. Churchill’s watercolours of imagined land and seascapes are effervescent with colour and offer a hyper saturated reality. At her hand nature is intoxicating, at once alluring and repellent, abstract and alien. Her molecular approach to looking breaks down the depicted surfaces, creating mind-expanding representations of the world. Mackenzie presents three specially produced wave sculptures that are half nautical capstan, half domestic water vessel. Their form is shaped using the digital graphs of healthcare, vaccinations and coronavirus cases, summoning the multiplicity of language and the current intensity of the notion of a ‘wave’. Light dances through the water as the viewer can peer down the telescope-esque peep hole - perhaps a glimpse into another world. The exhibition culminates in a collaborative installation, an organic ecosystem in which nature and the synthetic, science and the surreal intertwine. Energy enters the system through Churchill’s use of colour and pattern which is incorporated directly into the walls of the space, flooding the viewers retina. Reminiscent of a psychedelic release, the abstract forms are synchronised with a soundscape featuring an amalgamation of sonic healing techniques, amongst waves of electronica. The push and pull rhythm of the sea can be felt through the installation, with the aim to transport the viewer intrinsic feeling of solidarity and shared experience. Coral Churchill was born and lives in London. She studied a BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins. She was an artist in resident at the Muse gallery with a solo show in 2013 and has exhibited twice at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition with work in public and private collections Coral Churchill’s paintings takes inspiration from natural forms reflecting cloud, land and seascapes and merging biomorphic structures and forms. The horizon is a connecting and repeating point, with prismatic light a central focus to create otherworldly spaces. Images are interlinked, sampling different references from natural forms, photography and botanical illustration. The paintings focus colour into chromatic gradients, echoing the refracted light that rounds each day in sunrises and sunsets. Her work is centred in studies of nature, from the iridescence of jewel-like insects to deep sea creatures and their strange neon bioluminescent lights. Caroline Mackenzie explores the conceptual aesthetic of suspension through sculpture, installation, moving image & sound. This is investigated through a physical play of gravity, as well as the metaphorical notion of creating a suspended disbelief within her audience. The work can take on a live and ephemeral performative presence, sitting in-between fact (science) and fiction (cinema), often manifesting as contained ethereal environments. Physics makes way for trickery, as these otherworldly objects are often recognisable from the language of product design or derived from film or theatre sets. Light play often typifies the work, as investigations of transparency through materials attempt to evoke sensory immersion. Mackenzie was born in London and is now based in Margate. She studied for a BA in Fine Art Sculpture at Central Saint Martins and an MA Sculpture at The Royal College of Art. Mackenzie has exhibited nationally at South London Gallery and Camden Arts Centre and internationally through Art Core at Baroda’s Art Centre, India.
Hugh Wedderburn
Izit? and the ‘inner city, indoor hedge, the in-version of suburbia’, trees to replenish resources for future generations to carve
Dear Gosia, Thank you for asking me to contribute to The Museletter, I am humbled to be asked. I live and work in Tabard Street with the sculptor Danuta Solowiej and our mathematician daughter, Józia. We all care for Izit?, a cat who continues to live with us for so long as we provide for her. As a woodcarver trained in period styles, working traditionally with hand tools, finding myself companioned with Muse Gallery Artists might at first seem strange but I am quite comfortable. I see no philosophical or artistic distinction. Art is art and intended to stimulate thought. That my work is easily accessible does not make it superficial. Once engaged with, the underlying ideas are there to be sought out, recognised and contemplated. At the most fundamental level, the materials are natural, the making is slow and in tune with nature; founded on sustainability and the knowledge that a living tree is already an object of beauty, the wood it provides has grace before it is touched by chisel. The Master Carvers’ Association, of which I am a member, are central to the Grinling Gibbons Tercentenary National Festival. To this end we have been showing our work, living legacy, as an exhibition titled Art & Ornament. Our activity has been paused for the moment as, when planning, we were unsure of what restrictions Covid variants might cause. We hope to reemerge in the spring with a programme of events to see us through to the end of the tercentenary in August, which are listed on our dedicated website www.grinlinggibbons.uk Many thanks for your interest. Keep well, bye for now, Hugh
Hugh Wedderburn, Abundant Harvest, Julia Brodie Collection
Hugh Wedderburn, Pan Music Stand, Temple Newsam Collection
Hugh Wedderburn, Musical trophy Piece, Nic and Maureen Bentley Collection
Richenda Court, Behind the Human Ocean, Linocut,105x77cm
Sophie Cheung, Erasing News - Liminal colour of apple, moon and sun, Ink erased from newspapers (Apple Daily and Mingpao) on 600 erasers, 64 x 64.5 cm, 2020
Hing Yee Cheung Sophie 張馨儀
Hong Kong b.1983
Cheung Hing Yee, Sophie is an artist, writer, poet, and disability rights activist. She received Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) of RMIT University, a programme co-presented with Hong Kong Art School, majoring in Painting. She obtained a Diploma in Fine Art at Hong Kong Art School (2007) and a Certificate in Visual Arts at The Art School, Hong Kong Arts Centre (2004). Currently, she is finishing the MA Applied Anthropology and Community Arts in Goldsmiths, University of London. Cheung is a life-long advocate for disability rights, having worked as community developer in an NGO in mainland China, and a contributor to the implementation of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In 2015, Cheung published a book ‘Disabilities CV: The Stories of the Persons with Psycho-social Disability in Hong Kong’ 殘疾資歷 香港精神障礙者文集 that examines and re-conceptualizes the multi-faceted meanings of disability and the disability experience in an attempt to effect a paradigm shift towards social inclusion, challenging the dichotomous relation between “barriers” and “resources”. As an artist, Sophie is intrigued by the theme of freestanding – to treat objects as subjects. Her practice is informed by the concept of the subjectile—a paradoxical fusion of both subject and object. Cheung presents mundane tools such as erasers, pens, or newspapers as metamorphic objects that possess subjective integrity. Therefore, she seeks to articulate problematic aspects of subjective status by adopting a creative process that presents subjective integrity as if it is contiguous with objects as the exploration of painting or drawing materiality, as well as her instruments to bring out in-betweenness of construction and deconstruction. On the other hand, Sophie is an award-winning artist - obtaining significant art awards in Hong Kong including The First- Runner up of Hong Kong Human Rights Arts Prize 2018, presented by Justice Centre Hong Kong and supported by European Union Office of Hong Kong & Macau. Currently, she is represented by a significant art gallery Ora-Ora in Hong Kong. Instagram: cheunghingyee_sophie
Hing Yee Cheung, Eraser as subject 3, digital photography, 2019, (exhibited at Gallery HZ group show “Stains of Time”, 2020)
Hing Yee Cheung, Eraser as subject 2, digital photography, 2019
Using art forms as a means of conflict resolution across communities “I want to encourage both the artist and the viewer to use art forms to record and interpret multiple perspectives and develop an understanding that no single story exists.” – Hanna Qadir As a patron of the arts and a recent recipient of the Columbia University ‘Excellence Fellowship,’ London | New York based social scientist, Hanna Qadir (MSc) believes in harnessing the healing power of art in the field of conflict resolution. After spending an extensive career leading teams and resolving conflicts across a range of corporate industries, Hanna decided to utilise her business strategist background to initiate new collaborations across the disciplines of art, conflict resolution and social sciences. Remaining interested in the convergence of logic and creativity, she spent 18 months of scientific research understanding how to use the combined power of science and art forms to initiate a new creative dialogue for action and social change. Her work has involved interviewing and working with a number of artists including: Adrian Wright, former RA military veteran, Alex Harsley, founder of the 4th Street Photo Gallery (a New York based nonprofit photography collective) and its community of photographer artists, Ray Kumimoto, a Japanese visual and sound artist who believes in the sound of nature and listening to silence to awaken people as well as other minority artists using art to free themselves from the burdens of society. Her research found that using art forms to engage with the community offered an alternative and promising new way to look at conflict around us. It is her desire to highlight through her work that not all communication is verbal and to express those narratives that cannot be put into words through exploring a range of situations and identities where art performs a healing role. Hanna is currently working on a project, Look See Talk, calling attention to the role of photographic images as a means of conflict resolution. Using a range of photographs by both well known and emerging photographers, the project will invite the audience to consider stories – both seen and unseen – of the actors in the photographs. The overarching mission is to understand that beauty can be found even in a conflict situation, and to search for that beauty within themselves as well as the images. For more information on her research work and publications, please feel free to contact Hanna at hq2178@columbia.edu Hanna Qadir encourages an awareness of the multiple layers that exist within us as a means of interpreting conflict, like multiple reflections of the same persons image in a mirror.
Hanna Qadir encourages an awareness of the multiple layers that exist within us as a means of interpreting conflict, like multiple reflections of the same persons
THE GALLERIES ASSOCIATION
www.thegalleriesassociation.co.uk
coming back in 2022... Galleries on the Tour David Hill Gallery 345 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 6HA davidhillgallery.net Design Museum 224-238 Kensington High St London W8 6AG designmuseum.org Elephant West 62 Wood Lane London W12 7RH elephantwest.art/ Frestonian Gallery 2 Olaf Street W11 4BE London frestoniangallery.com Graffik Gallery 284 Portobello Road W10 5TE London graffikgallery.co.uk
Japan House 101-111 Kensington High St London W8 5SA japanhouselondon.uk The Muse Gallery 269 Portobello Road W11 1LR London themuseat269.com Serena Morton Gallery 343 Ladbroke Grove London W10 6HA serenamorton.com Unit One Gallery|Workshop 1 Bard Rd, London W10 6TP unit1gallery-workshop.com Whitewall Galleries Central 100 Westbourne Grove London W2 5RU whitewallgalleries.com
PORTOBELLO DANCE
www.portobellodance.org.uk Portobello Dance is a community initiative on the international stage. Through dance education and events, our established organisation runs and participates in a variety of activities – locally, nationally and beyond. Based in North Kensington’s diverse Notting Hill, Portobello Dance School is a popular weekend destination offering children from 3yrs to adults training in Classical Ballet, Tap and Street. With our open doors policy, over 150 budding dancers pass through for classes each week. The school’s high achievers often move onto further training, or auditioning for the commercial dance world.Our professional dance trainers and visiting tutors encourage appropriate exams, such as the British Ballet Organisation’s (BBO) curriculum – for which the pass record is exceptional. Annual school performances allow families, the local community, sponsors and patrons to experience our work, whilst a variety of local and national events showcase the school through its Student Performance Group. Widening our mission, the school Outreach programme takes our training and mission to other schools around the Boroughs of London. We encourage students to visit inspiring dance events including ‘Classically British’ (part of Black History Season) which highlights the overwhelming talent of the UK’s multicultural choreographers and dancers, often featuring upcoming talent from the school. Our vision is to provide access to excellence, so whether you’re interested in our school or how we promote dance beyond it, simply step in!
PIERS, what’s on your mind?
COMMUNITY
Piers, what’s on your mind? What is on my mind…? I was ill this week which took me out the loop for a couple of days and it got me thinking about connectivity. One of the things about Portobello Market in. the natural connectivity it’s the agora of the Greeks, where everyone goes down to tests the temperature, find out the price of eggs and just find out what’s going on. It also got me thinking a little bit about the loss of connectivity, as a result of the lock downs and the pandemic, how there were… I could see in my line of thinking there were connections I used to have through the portobello market. Real life mediums not online mediums, media I should say sorry… and there are connections that are being dropped, a bit like synapses in the brain being lost. And that got me a little bit, I don’t know… depressed. So what’s the solution for you? Well. I’m afraid the solution like everything else is to just get your finger out and keep on plugging on, uhm. I mean talking about connectivity for instance, we’ve just started a couple of new connections or we’ve picked up a couple of old connections actually. One is with the Irish cultural centre. We did our first show with them the other day and… you realise that going back in a room with someone, chatting …even if your there conducting a radio show rather than getting on with your normal life then it… you can, you can re-establish those connections. So we… take the radio for example, we’ve re-established our connection with the Tabernacle, we’ve re-established our connection with the Irish cultural centre. They’re connections which have changed in many ways, as a result of being disrupted for eighteen months. Bit the important things is that you have renewed them you’re moving on and as we all know all creativity comes from connections of ideas of random talks of odd things you say, so that’s a positive.
www.portobelloradio.com
Definitely… and do you think this is about reconnecting after covid or reconnecting after the split and polarity of society post Trump? Well that’s interesting. The polarisation which manifested itself in Brexit and Trump uhm has root going back that go back way before the pandemic and the covid lockdowns. The only way to heal those polar opposites and confrontations which have obviously in many ways have been allowed to fester in eighteen months of only online contact. The only way to overcome those challenges is to remake the small connections, the connections with your neighbour, with your friends, with the people you meet in the market, with the people you do show about Irish culture with. And if you concentrate on building the individual blocks and worry lees about attacking the macro problems, challenges then slowly you find you’ve moved towards a solution. Well, thank you very much for that I couldn’t agree with you more. I will see you later.
Live, hosted by Isis Amlak, Greg Wier and Piers Thompson, is a vibrant 120 minutes of current affairs, community banter and local music. This Youtube live stream boasts a symposium of human rights, philosophy and chaos; all supporting human rights, the planet and of course an abundance of local talent, representing a counter-culture of north Kensington – the birth place of some of the best of British culture and armchair revolutionaries. Watch every Friday between 16:00 – 18:00 at: https://bit. ly/37TmmML or check socials at www.portobelloradio.com for live links, playlists and trivia.
Alfred Aaron Wolmark Aaron Wolmark was born into a Jewish family in Warsaw in 1877, and moved to England with his family in 1883, first to Devon and then to the East End of London. He trained at the Royal Academy (from 1895), where he added the English ‘Alfred’ to his name, exhibiting there (1901-36), as well as with the Allied Artists Association (1908-16) and the International Society (1911-25). He had his first solo exhibition at Bruton Galleries in London (1905). Wolmark’s teenage years in London’s East End and two lengthy stays in his native Poland between 1903-6, had a huge visual and spiritual, impact on his early Rembrandtesque work and Jewish subject matter. In July 1911, after an artistic epiphany on honeymoon in Concarneau, Brittany, Wolmark jettisoned his early methods in favour of the ‘New Art’ and embarked upon the pioneering ‘colourist’ path that he followed for the next two decades of his working life. A pioneer as a painter of both the Jewish community in London’s East End and as an early modernist, Wolmark has been called the ‘father’ of the Whitechapel Boys. He was the only artist to be included in both the Whitechapel Art Gallery’s 1906 ‘Jewish Art and Antiquities Exhibition’ and in David Bomberg and Jacob Epstein’s ‘Jewish Section’ at the 1914 exhibition ‘Twentieth-Century Art: A Review of Modern Movements’. Wolmark exhibited regularly with the Ben Uri Art Society, as well as at the Grafton (1911, 1916, 1917) and Whitechapel Galleries (1910, 1914, 1927, 1956). In 1915 he co-founded the JAAS (Jewish Association of Arts and Sciences) with Adrian Alfred Woolfstein (Adrian Wolfe). Closely associated with the Ben Uri for many years: in 1925, together with Solomon J Solomon, Wolmark presided over the official opening of the Ben Uri’s first gallery in Great Russell Street, also acting as Vice-President from 1923-56, and as an adviser on purchasing policy. In the 1930s he introduced Cyril Ross and Ethel Solomon (Mrs Robert Solomon) to the Society. His oeuvre also included theatre designs for two Diaghilev ballets, pottery and stained-glass windows. Despite his success, Wolmark was rejected from both the London Group (1914) and the Royal Academy (1938). He died in London in 1961. His work is in many UK collections including the Arts Council Collection, the Ferens Art Gallery, the Government Art Collection, the Jerwood Collection, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), the National Portrait Gallery, Southampton City Art Gallery and The Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery at the University of Leeds. Text with kind permission (c) Ben Uri Collection website 2021: https://www.benuricollection.org.uk/ Image (c) The Estate of Alfred Wolmark See more at www.benuri.org
Alfred Aaron Wolmark, The Celibates’ Club Series: Fourteen Illustrations to the works Israel Zangwill
VICKY CAPLIN Vicky’s career has spanned the entertainment industry in London and Los Angeles. She produced music videos, arts and current affairs TV, for among others, Island Records, the FT, and the BBC. She coordinated sponsorship for arts festivals and has curated exhibitions programmes with a particular specialism in the work of emerging female artists. She is a qualified psychotherapist, and worked in an NHS at a mental health clinic in Portobello in the 1990’s. Vicky is on the advisory board of KCAW, bringing curatorial and sponsorship experience, and is an arts consultant to private and corporate collectors. She is a trustee of The Sixteen Trust, a charity which provides arts mentorship to young people through exhibition curation experience, in the real world, and at VOMA, the world’s first online museum. She was a founding trustee for the community mediation charity Centre for Peaceful Solutions. In 2020 she collaborated with KCAW, Damian Rayne and Maya Sanbar on the multi-media Open Doors exhibition, which featured films, photography, paintings and sculptures by artists based in the Kensington and Chelsea borough. A passionate believer in the role the arts play in education and mental health, for KCAW 2021, in conjunction with Muse Gallery, Vicky helped develop the festival’s inaugural internship programme, iF which acts as a gateway to professional development and opportunities for arts graduates. She is the grand niece of the Polish portraitist Alfred Wolmark (featured this month) who was closely involved in the early years of Ben Uri Gallery&Museum, and whose portraits of Warsaw, rabbinical life are held in museums world-wide, including Tate. Vicky says: “Having lived in the Portobello area for much of my life, it is fascinating to witness the re-emergence of the arts scene in and around the area. It was so sad when many artists had to give up living and working here as the cost of property started to make it out of reach, but in recent years, many new galleries and artist’s studio have returned offering opportunities to both artists and art lovers alike. At the Kensington and Chelsea Art Week we have devoted our love and support to making the borough among the most lively and exciting in London, and welcome new and existing audiences to appreciate all there is to admire.” www.thesixteen.org www.voma.space www.instagram.com/if_award/ www.kcaw.co.uk www.centreforpeacefulsolutions.org
photo: Marcus Valance
