photo credit; Stu Allsop
No fancy title for this blog – just what it says on the can. Naturally, I urge you to go and see Through An Artist’s Eye while it is on in Esher – just 5 minutes away from Hampton Court. It has been designed for this space, and though it will be exhibited elsewhere (and this has been part of the calculation) it is a unique configuration, made especially powerful by the proximity to Felicia Browne’s birthplace.
This has been such a gradual yet intense build-up to a showing of works, with each stage so carefully crafted that it has been astonishing to it’s creator (me) to be both the hand that installed the work (with Sarah Mossop) and witness to it’s final coming together.
Ours is perhaps a most curious and singular example of a profession (the artist at a certain level), in which we must take on so very many roles in order to bring a project to fruition?
I have been project instigator/developer, lead creative, manager, writer/director, marketer, driver, technician, & probably many more things my tired brain can’t recall right now.
Not surprising then that it takes some days (and perhaps weeks) to absorbed what has been achieved alongside a brilliant team of people whose contribution has been crucial. I was the engine but they provided the fuel – in each case the collaboration has been immensely enriching and brought me on as a professional artist. This kind of development is exactly what ACE funding is intended to bring about.
It’s incredibly gratifying then to have received such high praise from the great Adam Feinstein – biographer of Pablo Neruda, poet and journalist. I hope Arts Council England get round to reading his endorsement. Public money well spent – and our PV was very well attended too. But we’re ambitious – we’d love more people to come and see what we did.
“For anyone interested in the Spanish Civil War (which started eighty years ago), you must see the superb exhibition, ‘Through an Artist’s Eye – Felicia Browne and the Spanish Civil War’. Felicia was an enormously talented British artist who enrolled in the Spanish Republican militia to fight Franco in the summer of 1936. Tragically, she was killed on her very first mission. This show features Felicia’s wonderful sketches and letters from Spain, as well as beautiful artwork by contemporary artist Sonia Boué and memorable poems by Jenny Rivarola (both daughters of Spanish Repubican exiles). This exceptional exhibition runs daily until October 29 at All Saints Church, Chestnut Avenue, Esher, KT10 8JL.”
Adam Feinstein.
