Exhibition Reviews
Nigel Cameron
In the canvases of Out of the Blue, the artist has chosen among other traumatic and tragic events, the Tsunami the eruption under the ocean off the island of Sumatra in Indonesia archipelago, which sent waves of huge power and magnitude to the shores of Sri Lanka and India together with all the neighbouring countries with lethal human and devastating material consequences. In this, the most terrible of natural disasters in living memory, uncountable thousands died and perhaps an even greater number were left in life threatening circumstances.
“In one vertical canvas entitled A Momentous Day across the top of the painting sunshine glows yellow, then it is suddenly obliterated by the glittering monstrous swell of a turbulent sea crossing the picture and taking up a third of its area; and below, about to be destroyed in the massive movement of the water, the suggested simple façade of lit windows of an ordinary Asian street now in its final moment before obliteration.”
In Out of the Blue series of paintings the artist is concerned with several other traumatic events which took place in 2005, variously reported in the media, the July bombing of a train in London’s underground, the killing of a young boy which she entitled “I’m OK” reportedly his last words as he lay dying.
Her intention in all those works is to consider how in paintings such events can be made to convey something of our reactions to them. How deeply and in what kind of way do we become involved?