ecArt has always exhibited work in unusual spaces. Disused warehouses and buildings, both in the UK and in Europe have been our venues. The covid-19 pandemic affected all aspects of our lives, made social contacts difficult and travel nearly impossible. The need for connection and communication is amplified now. Online platforms have shown endless possibilities in connecting isolated people to academic subjects, music and the way we view and experience visual art.
In this new exhibition, ‘sea of change’, I am excited to show works by the artists Frances Aviva Blane, Jason Oddy and Susan Stockwell in a two part show. The title ‘sea of change’ encompasses major shifts in communication connected to what is happening now and throughout history. The works chosen relate to the artists’s experiences of a changing ‘world’ intensified by the pandemic.
The virtual space is the setting of the Kaveiria Palace Resort, a massive complex of buildings, built in mid 90s abandoned, looted and stripped of anything of value on the Greek island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. Lemnos is where God Hephaestus lived and worked, the God of fire, forges and art sculpture. This ghostly setting will be used to show the artist’s work online (part 2). Eventually it will move to a ‘real’ exhibition in a ‘real’ space in Lemnos. The intention is to coincide with the bicentenary events that will take place to celebrate the Greek uprising of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire.
Blane’s abstract paintings “straight from the heart to the canvas’ said Tess Jaray, are complex works; yet they retain the quality of spontaneity and accident. In her black paintings I see perfect beauty born out of difficult conditions. Her figurative head drawings, mostly self reflections, show a confrontation with fear and distress.
Oddy’s 12-part series Varanasi is a meditation on impermanence and change. In its attempt to make visible Heraclitus’s famous dictum, ‘You can never step in the same river twice’, it prompts us to perceive things as they really are while simultaneously suggesting how we might see the world anew.
Stockwell’s works and site specific installations are concerned with examining social and colonial histories. Her sailing ships and paper money boats floating in a ’sea’ of coins, show her continuous exploration on travel, migration, trade, as well as international currencies and dreams.
