In September 2020 I was commissioned to create artwork in response to a strangers’ pandemic story.
The Oxford Together: Stories is a project initiated by The Old Fire Station Gallery & The Oxford Hub, Supported by Arts Council England and Lankelly Chase Foundation.
The Brief
We’re delighted that you’re producing a piece of work in response to one of our stories. These stories tell the real experiences of people in Oxford, during the first few months of the Covid19 pandemic. These people were all impacted by the Oxford Together project, run by Oxford Hub – as volunteers, people receiving help, or people working for Oxford Hub or Oxford City Council.
My Proposed Response
Initially I would respond by creating ink drawings inspired by the story and this would then lead on to merging the sketches with photography to create an environment and narrative to work from, a sort of memory collage. Ultimately I would like to produce a single (or series of) paintings which responds to the themes in the story to create a dynamic which provokes an emotional feeling from the viewer. I usually work with the idea of creating a figurative piece, which can be abstracted to the point where it is open-ended enough for the viewer to interpret or even place themselves in to the work. Read the full story here
'Elizabeth' Oil on Canvas, 24 inch Tondo
'Holding onto...'Oil on Canvas ,40 x 40 inch
'In-between the Shadowed Days' Oil on Canvas, 24 x 16 inch
My response to the story and creation of the paintings
When I first read through the story ‘What Makes a Good Life’ I was taken by the strong theme of time not only in the story but also my own personal experience of time throughout the pandemic. We have a forever changing relationship with time and its speed feels as though it is constantly changing, always too slow or too fast. Time itself has this extraordinary elasticity, it bends and changes shape with your emotions and experience as does our perception of it. For instance, why does it slow down when we’re afraid, speed up as we age and twist and turn when we go through turmoil.
The story read in a way that expressed different moods with each time period, the first acutely and intimately conscious of the overwhelming and overbearing experience of the initial lockdown in the UK. The lack of control and anxiety surrounding the unknown was apparent and I wanted to use the materiality of paint and the colour palette to explore this strong sense of unease and almost panic. As I continued to read, I imagined the author and another character, Elizabeth, as the key protagonists and explored their days as a collection of moments in sketches. There was a point in the writing where I felt the storyteller had emerged out of the uneasy stage and found an unconventional purpose in supporting this new character, which offered a clear joining of their two worlds and experience of the pandemic. As the storyteller discussed bringing shopping to Elizabeth as she didn’t have the support of family in England to help, I envisaged a doorway as both functional and symbolic of where their paths would cross. Considering the title of the story, I wanted the doorway to offer a little light in the darkness, as a moment of crossing, or the in-between where two strangers found support in very challenging circumstances.
As part of my sketches and ideas surrounding the story and the pandemic, I also considered aspects of living through, which really empowered the theme of time and one of them was in connection to nature. A lot of people going out for their once a day walk or exercise started to notice nature almost taking back, or perhaps this was just heightened because of the ‘pause’ in the other aspects of life. I questioned how the life cycle of a flower would or wouldn’t be affected by the pandemic but also how a flower at its different stages really does explore a visual documentation of growth, change and time. I chose an Iris as a symbol of hope and thought about a flower as a bud, in bloom and dried in a frame used as a tool to represent the narrative through the paintings. If you look closely at the painting ‘Elizabeth’ you can see that there is a framed dried iris behind her shoulder, propelling this piece into the future and using the flower as a reminder of the past pandemic. I liked the idea that perhaps a flower was put into a shopping bag as a token or gesture of support and friendship.
Inspired by the undulating waves of change during the pandemic, the three paintings are fragments of memories which make up the bigger picture of the lockdown experience . The story explored the breakdown of living without a conventional routine and how to find happiness even through the darkest of times. I began by considering what the pandemic would look like, if I painted the psychological experience of it. By using this idea as a base for making I experimented with texture, colour and movement through materiality of paint, which formed a visual and emotional response to the story. Time played a strong part in how I approached each piece as I felt each piece had its own rhythm or inner-tempo in relation to the stage in the story.
Many people referred to living through lockdown as living in a blur, losing track of days and in the first piece ‘Holding onto…’ I really wanted to convey the overwhelming sense of chaos and loss of control. In contrast, I wanted ‘In-between the shadowed days’ to act as a lit corridor, a beacon of hope and a no-man’s land between isolated people and the fleeting moments of human connection. Finally, ‘Elizabeth’ I decided to sit within a more abstract and calm space, distanced from the previous two and purposefully faceless to allow anyone to project their personal experience of isolation on to hers.
Click Here to see the full range of work produced in response to different pandemic stories.