Representing Lives was a conference that took place in July 1997. The theme explored the multiplicity of women’s identities through the medium of writing biographies and autobiographies, and was funded by the English and Media Studies department at Nottingham Trent University (NTU).
Alongside the conference was an exhibition at Bonington Gallery titled Representing Lives, curated by Pauline Lucas. The exhibition showed four artists, who responded to an open-call which mirrored the themes of the conference, and showcased a mixture of sculpture, painting, photography, and fashion works. The motivation was to examine different perceptions of women in fact and fiction to create a female space within the gallery. To explore this idea, the exhibition featured Hilary Cartmel, Lubaina Himid, Sonia Lawson, and Denise Weston – a mixture of established artists and NTU graduates. Denise Weston studied alongside Donald Rodney, who is the focus of our Bonington Vitrines #25 exhibition.
In addition to the exhibition, Representing Lives was one of the first exhibitions to be documented on Bonington Gallery’s new website. The show lasted for a month in the physical space, but its legacy remained for much longer due to its online presence. In the words of exhibition organiser, Stella Couloutbanis, it was a show “enjoyed by visitors, and computer buffs!”.
On display in the Bonington Archive Cabinet (which can be found in the foyer space outside our main gallery) is the original exhibition proposal by Pauline Lucas, a call for papers for the conference, a memorandum from Stella Couloutbanis to Nick Freestone, a postcard from Pauline Lucas, and images from the original exhibition.
Curated by Alex Jovčić-Sas
Hilary Cartmel graduated from Nottingham Trent Polytechnic in 1980 with a degree in Sculpture. Hilary’s juggler series created out of her customary medium of steel, represents the chaos of modern life. ‘The Clumsy Juggler’ is an androgynous figure which suggests the turmoil of coping with the demands of children, running a busy household whilst pursuing a career.
Hilary has produced sculpture for exhibitions and has shown her work in galleries all over the UK. She has exhibited many pieces of public sculpture on the street, including Carmen which resides outside Nottingham’s Theatre Royal. Hilary has recently completed the gates to the Nottingham Fashion Centre on Convent Street and has produced 27 screens for Rotherham’s Transport Interchange as part of the Interchange’s upgrading.
Denise Weston graduated with an honours degree in Fine Art. She then took an MA in Fine Art at the former Birmingham Polytechnic. Denise currently teaches at Basford Hall College in Nottingham and is a visiting lecturer at NTU. She has exhibited across the country since graduating and is proactive in nurturing artistic talent in Nottingham, notably, by helping to co-ordinate the ‘Oldknows Gallery Exhibitions’ from 1988 – 1993.
Using images of clothing, Denise illustrates her own personal experiences of being a woman whilst escaping the direction of the female form. Flaneuse is a multimedia work which incorporates an image of Denise’s own jacket.
Denise said: “The word ‘Flaneuse’ is the female equivalent of the french word ‘Flaneur’ meaning the spectator and depictor of modern life. The work was inspired by a walk home from the studio late one evening and the realisation that there are still avenues – quite literally – which women feel they cannot explore.”
She elaborated: “I am concerned with using the process of painting as a metaphor; taking the blank canvas and ‘injecting life’ in a similar way that one gives life to inanimate objects, such as toys.”
Lubaina Himid, is a prolific artist who has exhibited across the UK and abroad and currently teaches Fine Art at The University of Central Lancashire. Lubaina has chosen three sets of paintings which challenge the common stereotype of ‘the architect’. For each set there are three paintings – the architect, model, and plan. The series challenges preconceptions of the archetypal architect, by depicting a black woman as the architect in each of the paintings, expressing her vision of a particular building.
Sonia Lawson exhibited six emotive paintings which conveyed the themes of injustice, grief and dignity which are integral to the Representing Lives exhibition.
Her Grieving Women painting (1991) depicts two female figures, one white, one black, standing serenely together as if in mutual and mute understanding of perhaps some deep grief or irrevocable loss. A situation holding no age or time gap.
Lawson’s Boadicea and her Daughters (1991) employs rich and sombre colours which convey a sense of serenity and a monumental dignity in the face of pain, persecution and injustice which they were made to suffer. An earlier work, Homage to Emily Bronte/Night Writing (1982) (from a series of five), is a tribute to the author of Wuthering Heights whose spirited intellect and stout resolve created something so bold and outlandish for its time, a novel that shook, shocked and delighted its readers. When Sonia first read it at the age of 11 it made her feel “wildly liberated” – she didn’t realise it was because she was empathising with one of our early feminists. One of the most striking themes prevalent in the exhibition, is the exploration of the bond between parent and child. Sonia’s painting Gallant Child depicts a child reaching up to the mother figure in a gesture of reassurance.
Sonia explained: “This painting is partly autobiographical, but many people will empathise with the notion of the child as the protector or comforter of a parent.”
Pauline Lucas studied Fine Art at the University of Reading in 1960, and later undertook an MA in Arts Criticism at Birkbeck Collage. Lucas began her career teaching art and art history at at a variety of different institutions across Nottingham and the East Midlands, while also maintaining a career as a freelance curator and exhibition maker.
Lucas’ curatorial work covered many aspects of feminist practice, working primarily with women’s groups who were producing works in a number of different mediums. Her shows were hosted across a number of Nottingham galleries, including Nottingham Castle and Angel Row Gallery. Lucas also published works in a series of catalogues which and publications such as Artline Newspaper.
Bonington Archive is a revolving display of material drawn from the Bonington Gallery Archive. If you have any materials relating to the programme, especially before 1989, please email boningtongallery@ntu.ac.uk
A major car crash has occurred in the gallery – a head on collision. Skid marks are emblazoned across the floor, there is wreckage everywhere and blood is splattered up the walls – glistening and fresh. You are being filmed by surveillance cameras, are you the victim or perpetrator? Sections of the gallery seem inaccessible, areas cordoned off by hazard tape… is it a major disaster, a crime scene or spoof horror film?
Craig Fisher’s exhibition, CAT-AS-TROPHE consists of a large-scale sculptural installation. Fisher’s sculpture, It’s Uncanny 2008 (two replica mini cooper cars) are constructed from carefully selected fabrics which are seductive in nature and ask the viewer to question the representation of violence laid out before them. Fisher makes work that situates itself in a world of contradictions. He plays with our perception, challenging us to consider notions of art and craft. He references both high and low culture and juxtaposes the pictorial with the sculptural, creating potential spaces of slippage which act as a challenge to our habits of looking.
The theatricality of Fisher’s installations allow the viewer to engage in a narrative interplay and his work often makes reference to ideas of filmic or cartoon violence. A sense of saturation and the anodyne is at play in Fisher’s work. It is easy to miss the horror through the materiality of the artwork. The strange familiarity of crafted objects, and the voyeuristic quality of such imagery is highlighted by the craftsmanship of the detailing, sewing and pattern-cutting. By contrasting fabric and craft with these images, the artist subverts the significance of masculinity and challenges notions of representation.
Funded by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
15 Years of Philip Watts Design – A retrospective presents of one of the UK’s leading creative design companies. NTU graduate Philip has designed an extensive and diverse range of award-winning products since the conception of Philip Watts Design, and this exhibition will show some of the most memorable: candle holders, mooing cow salt and pepper pots, giant melting staircases, radiators, door handles, lights and urinals.
Philip Watts Design has exhibited in over 20 countries, spanning four continents, and this will be the first time all this work will be seen together as a complete history of creative output.
Wanderlust speaks of the places, real, imagined and metaphorical, that we travel to through our practice as artists, designers, thinkers and educators. It invokes the desire to wander exploring the world as we find it, often straying from the path and discovering a new route.
This exhibition is a snapshot survey of experimental practice across the range of disciplines in the School of Art & Design. The works featured demonstrate the complex process of creation undertaken by practitioner / researchers within the School community including academic, technical and support staff. Wanderlust is curated as a dialogic space, where varied and diverse practices are placed in proximity to each other, opening up possibilities of new discourses, collaborations and projects. A series of events will tease and test out these possibilities starting with the private view on Wednesday 12 January 2011.
The third segment of Formations, our year-long programme delivered in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Postcolonial Studies Centre, includes events in January and February under the thematic banner – Formation: Memorials, focusing on the memorialisation of people, places, and histories, through statues and monuments and through writing. We will consider memorialisation in locations including the UK, US, and Pakistan, consider renowned figures and the politics of the statues and other public monuments commemorating them, and invite you to join us for conversations, poetry readings, and writing workshops.
Wednesday 20 January 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Join a writing session with Eve Makis exploring identity and the meaning of resilience, taking inspiration from seminal works by Maya Angelou. All levels welcome.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.
Eve Makis is the author of four novels, a life-writing guide and an award-winning screenplay. She’s recipient of the Young Booksellers International Book of the Year Award and the Aurora Mardiganian Gold Medal, her works shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She teaches fiction on the MA in creative writing at Nottingham Trent University where she is writer in residence for the Postcolonial Studies Centre.
Tuesday 26 January 2021, 4 pm – 5 pm
Annum Salman is a spoken word poet from Pakistan, who has undertaken her Creative Writing MA in Surrey and is currently residing in Karachi. Her book shares her experiences as Pakistani Muslim woman and a foreigner tackling mental health issues, sexism and racism. In line with the theme of memorials, Annum will be joining us live from Pakistan to read from her collection Sense Me and discuss identity, tackling racism and sexism, and her relationship with the UK and Pakistan as a Muslim woman. She will be introduced and in conversation with Ramisha Rafique, postgraduate research student at NTU.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Wednesday 3 February 2021, 7 pm – 8.30 pm
Slavery and Public History in the UK and US – A Conversation with Dr Jessica Moody and Professor Stephen Small. Chaired by Dr Jenny Woodley, with Purnachandra Naik.
The histories of both the UK and the USA are inextricably bound up with histories of enslavement and of the enslaved. And yet, both countries have failed to fully recognise or interrogate these pasts. Over recent months activists and campaigners have forced a reckoning with the symbols of this history, from the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, to the fall of numerous Confederate statutes in the United States. They have made headline news and provoked debate about what should be done with monuments to enslavers and what should fill the gaps in our public history.
This online event will bring together two leading scholars of public history and collective memories of slavery. Jessica Moody and Stephen Small will join us for a conversation about histories of slavery and their place in contemporary Britain and the USA.
Click here to watch via our Youtube
Wednesday 17 February 2021, 6.30 pm – 8 pm
Creative writing workshop inspired by controversial statues. What would a statue say if it could talk? Would it be indignant about its removal? Curse its creator? What stories could it tell you? What late night assignations has it witnessed? Come along and make things up. Express yourself about public art in a creative way.
All participants will get the chance of having their work edited and included on a spoken word album bringing their written work to life.
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is delighted to invite Audrey Reynolds to speak as part of the 2017 Fine Art Live Lecture Series.
Audrey is an artist and writer, her work includes sculpture, painting, text, film and spoken-word audio. She studied at Bath College of Art and at Chelsea College of Art, London.
Audrey is currently exhibiting in a group exhibition entitled All Men By Nature Desire To Know, which is on at Bonington Gallery until Friday 17 February 2017.
Solo exhibitions include:
Group exhibitions include:
A collection of her writing will be published by AkermanDaly in Spring 2017.
The Fine Art Live Lecture Series is an initiative by Nottingham Trent University’s Fine Art course, whereby creative practitioners are invited to deliver a lecture to current students. The lectures are also open to staff, alumni and the general public.
The lectures take place during term-time only.
A solo exhibition by Debra Swann consolidating her artistic research through sculpture, video and photography.
The show was an exploration of historical domestic spaces and the personas that may evolve through these spaces. Thinking about the repetition of tasks and the familiar sites of the home, narratives are created to comment on relentless labour and the strangeness of the comings and goings of the home.
A number of historic locations become backdrops, stages or sites for making work. The re-contextualization of objects made for such places took the viewer through subtle juxtapositions of time and reality. Blurring the relationship between fact and fiction the viewer could question what they are looking at and the process by which history is written and how we establish truth.
An exhibition of over 100 selected works from Nottingham Trent University alumni, held across the University’s City site. The work detailed the impact that our alumni have had internationally on the visual arts and creative industries.
Just a few of the alumni who were involved with the exhibition:
Urban artist Jon Burgerman, Turner prize winner Simon Starling, Artist duo Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Photographer Andy Earl, Film director Jonathan Glazer, Knitwear designer Motohiro Tanji, Actor and comedian Paul Kaye, Sculptor Wolfgang Buttress, Landscape designer Sarah Price, Paper cut artist Rob Ryan, Visual artist Lucy Orta, Furniture designer Alexander Taylor
Plus many more; some of the exhibits on show were newly commissioned work special for the NTU Alumni Show.
For more details about In The Making and all events and activities surrounding Since 1843, please visit the Since 1843 webpage.
Click here to download the exhibition audio guide.
A catalogue featuring the profiles of all the exhibitors is available to buy online, or directly from the Bonington Art shop.
The Accumulation of Things brings together seven artists whose work deals with shared interests of experience, circumstance and the familiar. Personal histories, both real and imagined, are examined through painting, photography and sculpture.
Aditya Babbar’s photographs capture the complexities of interpersonal relationships by the creation of meticulously directed portraits. His compositions are littered with evidence, from the decor to the posture of the subjects, all the while suggesting at a possible narrative beyond the picture.
Stories, or snippets of stories are told through the language of painting and drawing by Joe Bloom. He invites the viewer to use elements presented before them, together with their own interpretation and experiences, to make decisions on the connotations of the composition.
Photographer Julie Greve’s work takes the form of portraits and staged visual scenarios made in collaboration with groups of girls. Born and raised in a small town in Denmark, a lot of Julie’s work focuses on the areas in which she grew up.
Alicia Jalloul’s sculptures address the paradoxes that exist with the crossing between cultures, whilst Joy Labinjo draws on her British-Nigerian heritage, inviting the viewer to step into preliminary drawings saturated with colours, patterns and people, reconfigured from her family photograph albums.
Evie O’Connor explores class and identify in her works, and her textiles background has heavily informed the stylistic and decorative qualities within her work. She imagines both a beautiful and droll environment, explored through familiar domestic environments. Max Prus produces figurative drawings and paintings, telling stories with complex narratives representing culture and society.
Exhibition curated by Adam Murray. Adam is a lecturer, photographer and curator based in Manchester. He is co-founder of photography collective Preston is my Paris, and most recently he co-curated North: Fashioning Identity with Lou Stoppard at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Somerset House, London.
Special thanks goes to John A Stephens Ltd. for supplying materials for this exhibition.
Between 16 December 2019 and 10 January 2020, Nick Chaffe worked within the gallery as our ‘Motif Artist in Residence’ alongside Bruce Asbestos. During this time, Nick embraced laser cutting technology to further explore his illustrative style of minimalising and fusing together everyday items to create new meaning and possibility.
Concurrent to Bruce Asbestos’ Spring/Summer 2020 collection launch, Nick will be showcasing outcomes from his residency in the form of jewellery, sculpture and prints, as well as experiments and samples from the various processes he has been exploring.
Nick is a graphic artist, illustrator and brand designer based in Manchester. He has worked with Amnesty International, The Oscars, Time Out, London Jazz Festival, Manchester International Festival, and more locally Nottingham Contemporary and 200 Degrees Coffee.
Visit Nick’s website for more information on his work.