Visual Responses to Grief
The aim of this special exhibition, shown for the duration of the festival at Electro Studios, was to showcase local artists’ reactions to their own personal grief. These were depicted in textiles, paint, ceramics, mosaics and text, all strong enough to open up conversations. Erica Smith’s Aids Day quilt was there (see Hastings Independent 292, link below) and it was good to see it again, but also a smaller work by her – a partial quilt made in memory of her grandmother, hung back to front, with hexagons cut from card on which was printed the careless mundanity of the everyday – opticians’ appointments, excerpts from old news items, hotel advertisements, an ad for a commemorative guide to a royal wedding – the kind of printed matter that surrounds all of us and can represent the everyday life of people we love. Smith’s grandmother, towards the end of her life, forgot some things and got things wrong – thus there are holes in the work, and one or two of the hexagon motifs are hung in reverse.
Another notable piece was a mosaic made by Emma Harding, a triptych incorporating a Keats Ode – When I have fears that I may cease to be. Her mosaics are a kind of rework, made up of shards of glazed pottery, thus resurrected and reappropriated. It’s an elegant piece with a part-organic, part-geographical feel, with its subdued and delicate earthen colours. Doubly reminiscent of the genius of Keats, who died of consumption at only 27. Pieces of ‘lofty vases’? Well, maybe not, but beautifully put together.
Fuller details of this exhibition can be found in the festival booklet, downloadable at tinyurl.com/29v772wp. Previous review of quilt at AIDS day at: tinyurl.com/yexjxsnd
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