Many would forgive Nancy Odufona for politely declining the opportunity to prepare a one person show at BlackShed Gallery. After a tough academic year, she recently landed her first teaching job at a local college and, as many will understand, this comes with stress and a heavy workload. This did not deter her. Nancy tells me that she has always liked a challenge and elaborated to say that she would have felt disingenuous if she had shelved her own artistic practice to teach others how to be creative. 

Nancy moved to Hastings when she was thirteen and has lived here for sixteen years. After graduating in Fine Art at Goldsmiths University in 2014 she experienced post course malaise which triggered a period of deep reflection. Whilst studying for her degree her work had explored the relationship between the performer, audience and the stage and whilst subsequent work would develop her approach of combining sculpture, ceramics, arranged objects and performance, it began to be more preoccupied with what she describes as “the fear of the stage”. Her work became more about the creative process itself and the attendant fears and anxieties that can be experienced when planning and preparing work. 

Most visits to exhibitions involve walking around a functional space and looking at the framed rectangles of paintings or prints – or moving around singular sculptures on plinths or the floor. Nancy’s show at BlackShed goes way beyond the obvious in that it combines multiple projected films, sound, spoken word with impressive large scale sculptures that all but fill the space. 

Nancy explains to me that she was drawn to the idea of cultivating the gallery space, of treating the preparation of her show more like solving a landscape design problem, rather than just hanging pictures. It is important to her that the exhibition should be a more immersive and sensory experience and, having seen the show in preview, I can testify that she has achieved this admirably. 

Like many of us, Nancy gained solace and psychological strength through regular walks along the strand line during lockdown. The idea for the work initially came during a walk at Fairlight beach. The way that being by the sea could bring about a much more contemplative head state began to fascinate Nancy and she began to ask herself “how could I bring this into a gallery space.” She tells me that her regular walks by the sea became like rituals of purification and replenishment and she began to recognise the deep need to pause … to do as the old adage says ‘Don’t just do something, sit there’. 

Describing the mental and emotional state she felt when by the sea as an “island of calm, that invites you to do very little”, she explains that she began to consider these liminal seaside spaces as “belonging to everyone, yet no one”. The show itself recalls Japanese Zen Gardens and invites us to think about the whole process of artificiality – the show may be immersive, but the means by which the work was made are clear in plain sight. 

I urge you to pay a visit to this show as I believe it has the power to increase the dominion we have over our internal landscapes. 

Nancy Odufona’s show ‘Pebble Island’ runs at the BlackShed Gallery from 17th October. For more information see theblackshedgallery.org.uk 

The Muddy Stilettos lifestyle website came into being in 2011 when journalist Hero Brown (Independent on Sunday, The Observer, Elle) moved out of London with her husband and baby son and set the site up to explore fun stuff to do in Bucks & Oxon. Initially conceived as an “urban guide to the countryside” for “smart, fun-loving women living outside London” (hence muddy stilettos), it has now become a thriving ‘go to’ site spanning 25 counties. 

The annual Muddy Awards have almost 30 categories encompassing Yoga/Pilates Studios, Local Food/Drink Producers, and best Art Gallery. There were numerous nominations for smaller venues and independent businesses and over 750,000 votes.

Kenton Lowe with Blackshed team Ian Penny (L) and Orlanda Castello-Cortes (R)
CREDIT: CA Smith

When I spoke to Kenton Lowe, blackShed’s director, he was clearly overwhelmed and touched by the level of public support received in the form of winning votes. This is timely validation for blackShed, which has steadily grown in stature and reputation since its opening in 2009. 

For those who don’t know, the gallery is nestled amongst converted farm buildings and overlooks the hop fields that surround the village of Robertsbridge. Whilst sounding a bit off the beaten track, it is but a short distance down a country lane that leads off the A21.

Kenton moved away from London in the mid-90s and studied Fine Art at the University of Brighton. He tells me that 15 years experience working in engineering meant that, when he decided to set up his own gallery space, he had the pragmatism and a certain worldly insight that gave him the confidence to realise his vision and made him particularly adept at building mutually sustainable networks with other Arts organizations and larger public galleries.

To date, blackShed has partnered with the De La Warr Pavilion and Hastings Contemporary, as well as working with groups such as Project Art Works; an artist-led organisation working with children, young people and adults with complex needs. The gallery continues to be supported by the Arts Council and the blackShed Picture Framing has just been awarded a major contract to prepare artworks for the upcoming Turner Prize exhibition.

Building a flourishing gallery in this way, has enabled Kenton to assemble a growing stable of established and emerging artists. He sees his remit as going far beyond that of merely providing a space for exhibitions, he actively nurtures and mentors new talent and is always prepared to take risks and to host shows that provide little, if any, remuneration for the gallery itself.

A case in point is the much anticipated exhibition by the St Leonards-based artist, Nancy Odufona that opens in September. This show will be a combination of sculptures, video and installations as well as spoken word. In planning this show and supporting Odufona, blackShed is very much asserting its position in the sparsely populated middle ground between commercial high street galleries – nay shops – and the larger publicly funded galleries and museums. Talk to any lesser known visual artist and they will tell you chapter and verse about how difficult it is to exhibit, particularly in the larger more reputable spaces that are largely the domain of the ‘top’ echelon of practitioners. For that reason alone, it is vital to support the blackShed vision of championing those with only a precarious foothold in the public world of contemporary Art.

• For more information visit: theblackshedgallery.org.uk sussex.muddystilettos.co.uk